And above all, Pete Najarian, of whose “Wash Me On Home, Mama” one wants to cry, Perfect! One puts down the book with rinsed eyes and clear heart. How does it happen? Formally the novel is simple: a few pages at a time devoted to the inner moments of a handful of characters living loosely together in a sort of commune, a line to indicate forward movement drawn lightly by an italicized paragraph between each section. The sensation is strangely and liberatingly of space, created by rhythm perhaps,...
