Tom Lynch

A strange, sexual and dark look at personal bonds and friendship, Lise Haines' "Small Acts of Sex and Electricity" balances between sentiment and raging jealousy, as two women, Mattie and Jane, the best of friends, envy each other's lives in the loneliest of ways, until one day, at a beach community in California, Jane drives off without a trace, leaving Mattie her husband and children, and the decision whether to pursue that life or keep her own. It's a destructively interesting plot, as motherhood, sexuality, aging and honor all come into play. Haines, who was raised in Chicago, stylistically separates herself from book-of-the-month clubs with her avoidance of quotation marks and her deliberate stutter-start prose, matter-of-fact in its form and ideas. "Small Acts of Sex and Electricity," while hardly perfect, breezes by in moments and finds in its characters the unrecognizable places that do, in fact, exist.

Lise Haines discusses "Small Acts of Sex and Electricity" September 11 at Women and Children First Bookstore, 5233 North Clark, (773)769-9299, at 7:30pm. Free. (2006-09-05)

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