by J.P. Donleavy
Delacorte; 407 pages; $10.95
The ginger vanished from J.P. Donleavy's comedy about the time he got himself an Irish country squire's suit to wear for dust-jacket photographs several books ago. The ratty, malicious humor of The Ginger Man (1965) was unmistakably the effort of an authentic writer. Donleavy's recent works seem to be the chores of an author, necessary productions for the furtherance of a literary personage. Donleavy may not actually have dictated his new book while riding in the back of a rented Rolls, but the impression given by Schultz, a farce about an American theatrical impresario...