THE WEATHER IN MIDDENSHOT (280 pp.) Edgar MittelholzerJohn Day ($3).
"Conditions seem favorable for a séance this evening," said Herbert Jarrow. And before long, he was in the middle of it; he was chanting a garbled version of the witches' incantations from Macbeth. Tapping Herbert's clasped hands, his daughter Grace whispered: "Mother is here. She has emerged from the Gloom." Mother Jarrow toddled in from the kitchen of their English cottage. "I am here, Herbert," she said, "I'm always near you, Herbert." :'But in a different world," insisted Herbert, "you died and I went mad."
Mad old Herbert Jarrow is the hero of...