WHO DO YOU LOVE by Valerie...

WHO DO YOU LOVE by Valerie Sayers (Dell: $10). Sayers’ novel about an unconventional Catholic family captures the sticky, claustrophobic atmosphere of Due East, a small town on the coast of South Carolina. It’s late 1963, and everyone in Due East seems to know everyone else’s business--residents can tell who’s visiting whom by where the cars are parked. Only Dolores Rooney, a woman in her late 30s who’s reluctantly facing the prospect of a fifth pregnancy, has been able to preserve a modicum of privacy. But the growing sexual and social awareness of Kate, her 11-year-old daughter, threatens to penetrate Dolores’ fragile shield of secrecy about her affair with a visiting reporter from the New York Times. Although the characters are often skillfully drawn, “Who Do You Love” is a novel that needs a judicious editor: Sayers puts in so many repetitious flashbacks and unnecessary details, her story begins to seem as drawn out as a humid summer in Due East.