Me Times Three
By Alex Witchel
Knopf, $22
ISBN 0375411798

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Seeing triple: heartache in NYC

She has a glamorous if low-paying job, obsesses over her appearance and is torn between a patent cad and a possibly good guy. No, it's not Bridget Jones rediviva, but Sandra Berlin, the protagonist of New York Times style columnist Alex Witchel's debut novel, Me Times Three, set in the Manhattan of the gung-ho late '80s.

With her editorial position at the fashion magazine Jolie! (read Elle: the clefs in this particular roman aren't difficult to decode) and a high school beau/fiance on the corporate fast-track, Sandra figures she has it made. Next stop: "a Tudor mansion in the suburbs, where I would write children's books in a studio over the garage and never miss a car pool." Chalk up any initial irritation over Sandra's smugness to her age (26). Luckily, life has other plans.

Just maintaining her equilibrium at the magazine -- trying to appease the capricious "Miss Belladonna" while dodging her dogged lieutenant, mean martinet Susie Schein -- is challenge enough, and the scenes of editorial infighting are among the book's most amusing. Then one evening at a gala at the Met, Sandra happens to meet her fiance's other fiancee, who tells her there's yet another waiting in the wings. News of this nature would unhinge the most mellow of souls, so no wonder Sandra finds herself batting about Manhattan unburdening herself to perfect strangers, who tend to "step away sideways, smiling vaguely, the way people do when a homeless woman stands on the corner singing Piaf, for money."

For comfort, she turns to her gay friend, Paul, who happens to be embarking on a difficult transition of his own. Here's where the heart of the story lies, and it's not hip or flip, spinnable or -- ultimately -- doctorable. For the first time in her life Sandra is faced with "a situation where being smart didn't help, being responsible didn't help, even being nice didn't help. There was nothing I could do to stop it or to fix it."

Witchel handles this development with a depth and compassion which hint at capabilities beyond those demonstrated in this semi-bagatelle. Not that one wishes she would shoot for less style, but perhaps in her next novel she'll dare to encompass more substance.

Sandy MacDonald is a writer in Massachusetts.