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HEARTS IN ATLANTIS

A novel in five stories, with players sometimes migrating fromone story to the next, Stephen King's latest, Hearts in Atlantis, uses the 1960s as memory and metaphor to both decode and make mysterious American life in the '90s. And while it's usually hazardous, if not a real blunder, to assume that we detect the author's sentiments in the words of a particular character, there's an impassioned speech delivered here by a 50ish baby boomer that's nearly impossible not to take as coming straight from King: ''We had an opportunity to change everything. We actually did. Instead we settled for designer jeans, two tickets to Mariah Carey at Radio City Music Hall, frequent-flier miles, James Cameron's 'Titanic,' and retirement portfolios. The only generation even close to us in pure, selfish self-indulgence is the so-called Lost Generation of the twenties, and at least most of them had the decency to stay drunk. We couldn't even do that.''

-- Tom de Haven

from: Entertainment Weekly Online