'Life' lacks taste, loses focus

THE GOOD LIFE, by Jay McInerney, Knopf, 353 pages, $25.

It seems fitting that a novelist who has devoted so much of his life to partying that he has not written up to his abilities should write a book called "The Good Life."

But if you expect from the title that it is representative of atonement, you will be disappointed.

This is, strictly speaking, a 9/11 novel , although the tragedy of 9/11 is more like an excuse for the book, or at least a basis for the meeting of the principal characters. Fellow New Yorkers Corrine Callaway and Luke McGavock are introduced to each other while doing volunteer work in a soup kitchen near Ground Zero.

Corrine is in a rocky marriage with Russell, a successful publisher, although they have young twins, conceived in a petri dish with eggs provided by Corrine's wild but beautiful sister, Hilary (which becomes a major complication). Corrine is suspicious that Russell has cheated on her — and she is right.

McGavock, who lives a little higher on the social register on the Upper East Side, is an investment banker who has decided that life should have more to offer than wealth, of which he has plenty. He is disturbed, also, by his teenage daughter, who is consumed by materialism, and his wife, Sasha, who is beautiful, well-spoken and completely caught up in social stardom.

His marriage is on the verge of dissolution because he and Sasha see everything so differently, and they are becoming more and more distant from each other. Besides, Sasha has been rumored to be having an affair with a powerful man he doesn't respect.

The set-up, then, is ideal for Corrine and Luke to fall in love — which they do, in wholly romantic fashion, just as each is looking in fresh terms at life and its meaning.

They have been more profoundly affected by the tragedy of terrorism than their families. Eventually, they are so much in love that they go to the soup kitchen more to see each other than to do humanitarian work.

The premise here works in the main, and the characters are interesting. Corrine, especially, is loaded with charisma. But the novelist tries to do too much and go in too many directions.

When the storyline focuses on Corrine and Luke, it works. But it sputters when dealing with Russell and his girlfriend, Russell's diverse friends from the literary world and Corrine's dangerous sister, who seems ready to take obnoxious — if understandable — ownership of the twins.