Three new books by staff members of TIME:
THE WALLS OF HEAVEN, by Robert McLaughlin (381 pp.; Simon & Schuster; $4.95), is set in Phrygia, a small phantom country in the Middle East that is startlingly like Lebanon. For Novelist McLaughlin (The Notion of Sin), the resemblance is pure convenience. What interests him is his own proposition that today only the world's small countries produce the "hero-leaders" in the classic mold. In Phrygia, passions are still politics, feuds are more important than primaries, and the bitterness of centuries can clash in the exchange of a glance.
Phrygia's hero-leader is dedicated, urbane and...
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