WASTELAND

Most of Block’s books are iridescent rainbows of prose, no matter how knotty the scenario. This one, which takes its title from T.S. Eliot and includes his poem “Marina,” is instead darkly opalescent. The language is simpler, but cuts deep. The short chapters alternate voices among Marina, her brother Lex, and West, who loves Marina. Marina and Lex were like one soul, and Marina can barely live after her brother’s suicide. We learn it is Lex’s consummated desire for his sister that leads to his death. It is West who stays at Marina’s side at the sea she loves and at the clubs they frequented while she tries to unlayer this death. The revelation at the end unravels but does not illuminate the story, and is shocking in its simplicity. The life of Southern California and a few musical references and artifacts of the late 1960s create a small distance from a great sorrow. (Fiction. YA)