Salably Swoony

CORONET AMONG THE WEEDS (187 pp.) --Charlotte Bingham--Random House ($3.95).

It's a bit much really. Me writing a book I mean. It isn't as if I had any talent or something. But what's a girl to do. There I was twenty and pear-shaped and daddy a noble lord. Only not a rich one. Lord and Lady Clanmorris are what my parents really are. Only really they are writers too. Named Bingham like me. They live in London. And I couldn't type or do shorthand very well really. So I started this corny book. All about me.

At least it's supposed to be my autobiography. I'm the coronet because daddy is a noble lord. And the weeds are what I call the chinless boys who go to deb dances. It's hell's boring, actually.

The thing is to sound innocent but almost have sexy adventures. And sound on the inside. Like mentioning that daddy is a noble lord every so often and using plenty of Mayfair slang. I tell how debs get through dull parties by hiding War and Peace in the loo of the Dorchester where the dances are given. But a girl has to have lived or something. Otherwise she'll be a drip. So I thought I'd throw in some sentences like. "Lesbians aren't my swooniest subject." I mean, it came naturally after I had that woman with the glittery eyes corner me in a closet. I escape, of course. One of my friends, the daughter of an actress, gets pregnant and has an abortion. All this may sound po but it's not really if a girl sounds innocent enough telling it.

I didn't want to leave anything out. Like the Hunt Ball. You know the hostess looks like a horse and everyone's hell's boring except me. Being a deb was easy because my daddy's a noble lord. Did I mention that? And I did the beatniks too --in Chelsea. Beatniks grunt and look sick and don't wash and scratch a lot, I can tell you, which is killingly funny or something. And what else. Oh yes. A trip to Paris, where I lived with a down-and-out marquis. Mummy says the best way to keep from being raped by a weed is carry a pepper shaker in your purse.

Unless you're an absolute nit you know what kind of a book it is by now. I mean not swoony. But not hell's boring either. I do hope everybody buys it. Daddy's a noble lord you know.

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