DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709060621

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: EUGENE M. McAVOY 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

JOURNALIST SEARCHES FOR REDEMPTION

COUNTING COUP

G.D. GEARINO

Simon & Schuster. 224 pp. $22.

The situation has become a stereotype: Writer publishes first novel; novel and writer become overnight successes. Writer churns out second novel; novel is a dismal failure. The phenomenon is so pervasive it has become a common explanation for those all-too-frequent embarrassments that mar even the best careers.

Such might have been the case with G.D. Gearino. In 1996, his first novel, What the Deaf-Mute Heard, was received with immediate and lavish acclaim. It led quickly to a movie contract, and some critics even whispered behind closed doors the words ``modern classic.''

As any ambitious writer with an assertive agent would do, Gearino published his second novel before the dust could settle on his first. Counting Coup is the result, and though no modern classic, it survives a few flaws that in less skilled hands might prove fatal. Here is a writer worth watching.

Counting Coup is the story of newspaper columnist Tad Beckman's rise to fame and confrontation with his selfishness and impotence. The son of a weak-willed mother, who has drifted from self-pity to madness, and the grandson of a tyrant who resents him for representing his daughter's single act of rebellion, Tad has always been an outsider. He has used this perspective, however, to great advantage in his columns, which champion the rights of a variety of victims. But after years of chronicling misery, he has grown inured to pain and become just another bored and cynical journalist.

Yet a tragic stream of events pushes him toward enlightenment. When an abused woman asks for his help, her weakness echoes his mother's self-pity, and Beckman brushes her fears aside. Within days, the woman is dead, decapitated by the ex-husband from whom she sought protection. The column Beckman writes to atone for the guilt of his unresponsiveness wins him a Pulitzer Prize, and the unwanted recognition exposes his hypocrisy. Full of self-loathing, he enters exile from his home, his career and the vacuous life he has led.

Exile, however, proves more meaningless than writing, and Beckman grudgingly returns to journalism. In Miami, he meets Jocelyn Pritchard, another woman tormented and abused by her husband. Though she asks for neither his assistance nor his love, she ultimately accepts both. Faced with a second opportunity to act as protector, Beckman strikes out at the man who is hurting Jocelyn by exposing in the Miami Post-Star the husband's corrupt business practices.

The documentation of his charges is provided by Jocelyn. When the article appears, the information turns out to be fraudulent, and Jocelyn disappears. Her estranged husband sues the paper for libel, and Beckman faces the loss of his career and reputation. Searching for Jocelyn and the truth behind the documents she has provided, Beckman discovers the elusive and bittersweet reality of redemption.

Though his writing is competent and often brilliant, Gearino seems not to have decided whether this novel is a mystery, a confession or both. His story veers toward genre, even while it begs for the more serious reading that could result from a clearer rhetorical purpose. His often predictable plot is also severely weakened by an excessive reliance on coincidence to solve the mystery and resolve the conflict.

Still, the absolute believability of Beckman's voice and Gearino's skillful merging of style with character more than make up for any flaws in the novel. This character seems real in thought and action, and what in another voice would prove incredible seems plausible in his. Counting Coup is a thoroughly respectable second novel, a triumph of character, and a work that will solidify an already promising career. MEMO: Eugene M. McAvoy is a writer who lives in Norfolk.

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