PERFECT PITCH A Life Story by...
PERFECT PITCH A Life Story by Nicolas Slonimsky (Oxford University Press: $25; 258 pp.) Slonimsky manages to fuse--but not confuse--cleverness and brilliance. He juggles self-importance and self-mockery with poignant bravado. --Martin Bernheimer
THE FIFTH CHILD by Doris Lessing (Alfred A. Knopf: $16.95; 131 pp.) A gaunt fable: A cheerful story of a fond if fatuous marriage assumes the guise of near-Gothic horror and finally strips to disclose a desolate social message.--Richard Eder