Books: Death of a Groper

THE PROSPECT BEFORE US (266 pp.)— Herberf Gold—World ($3.50).

A prevalent hero in serious U.S. fiction is the groper, a man who does not know quite what he wants and usually makes himself miserable trying to get it. In each of his two novels, one of the newest recruits to the genre, Cleveland-born Herbert Gold, 29, has focused on a hard-at-work groper. His first novel, Birth of a Hero, featured a middle-aged father of three groping for a new personality in an extra-marital love affair. The Prospect Before Us tells the story of a pudgy...