BLIND AGAIN

By R.Z. Sheppard

Looking for Mr. Good-Bar, Judith Rossner's 1975 cautionary tale for the sexually adventurous, was about a young woman who picked up Mr. Wrong and ended up dead. Rossner's Perfidia (Doubleday; 308 pages; $23.95) exemplifies braver, newer twists on the old woman-in-jeopardy plot.

Madeleine Stern, the novel's captivating memoirist, could be Thelma or Louise's kid sister. That is, if those cinema folk heroes had been honor students and lived on the right side of Santa Fe. Rossner has New Mexico's picturesque capital down pat. The recently arrived artists, gallery owners and real estate buyers are dead on as promoters of the highly exportable Southwest style. Among the newcomers is Maddy's mother Anita, a tequila-chugging virago who headed West with her daughter after leaving her professor-husband at Dartmouth. Before she can say "red-hot chili," Anita jumps into bed with a local flake. "My brother...was born about nine months and two minutes after we got to Santa Fe," says Maddy.

Don't be fooled by the bright, spunky tone. Perfidia, Spanish for treachery, is a story of emotional abuse and tragic conflict. Maddy's need for love is repeatedly denied. Drunk or sober, Anita lets her know that she is not wanted. Maddy's handsome Latino boyfriend takes his time, and much more, before announcing that he is married. Back East, her father treats her as if she were a distant relative. Perfidia, like Goodbar, burns hypnotically to an explosive climax. Enough said, except that Maddy acts in self-defense, that her life is utterly changed by her actions, and that Judith Rossner again delivers a jolting demonstration of the dangers of blind love and the literary rewards of 20/20 hindsight.

--By R.Z. Sheppard