The Microcosm by Maureen Duffy

This novel, which opens and closes at a London club for the gay girls, is an expository, explicit, communal, interior view; while it occasionally refers to the state as a ''common darkness and loneliness,'' it never indulges in regret; and through Matt, a butch boy, who usurps control of the book, it adaptively attempts to find ''a system, a scheme that'll fit it all in.'' The novel is handled in alternating episodes in the first person of Steve, who teaches school; Sadie and his/her Jonnie-- they've been together four years; Cathy who runs away to London to find someone who is like her, takes a job as a bus conductor (these girls prefer uniforms-- gas station attendants- army- etc.); Marie who tells her story in the freeform of total disassociation-- ''sick o i am sic... wordslip wordshift''; and a number of others who are ''butch or femme or just a little in-between.'' Miss Duffy's book, which is written with a good deal of technical competence, is unequivocal; as Matt says, ''We're part of society, part of the world whether we or society like it or not. ~ Kirkus Review