A GENUINE MONSTER <i> by David Zielinski (Atlantic Monthly Press: $17.95; 252 pp.) </i>

“A Genuine Monster” begins as a terrific novel. Consider the promising observation: “The problem is this: Sometimes people don’t know the difference between what’s secret and what’s not. The difference is tremendous.”

From the opening sentence, the reader is catapulted smack into the rambling mind of Nick Ames. His thoughts are, to say the least, bizarre. Monster movies function as his fundamental metaphor. His dark side has created Brak, a terrifying monster who embodies all the things that vaguely threaten his peace and stability. Why does Godzilla suddenly turn into a good monster in one of the movies? The answer certainly holds a great truth, Nick fervently believes. If only he had been born before the great crush of modern cities cluttered the air with millions of conflicting thought waves, he might have been able to concentrate and discover the answer. Gradually we get the idea we are in the mind of, perhaps not an idiot savant, but a brain-damaged philosopher: a sweet giant who longs to slow things down a little so he can grasp the world better. Had Nick a village, he might be the village fool; had he a king, he would be a magnificent jester.

Unfortunately, Nick lives in contemporary San Diego. His king is Argo, alcoholic author of such immortal fiction as “Soviet Slugfest,” who fills Nick’s mind with cheap tough-guy ideas and uses Nick’s resulting, exotically naive, ruminations as inspiration. Nick’s sometime friend and the object of his lust is LaWanda, sexpot crystal healer. Argo and LaWanda may not be the most loyal friends, but at least they are sticking around. Having been drafted twice--once by the U.S. Army and once by the San Diego Padres baseball club-- Nick has lost most of his friends in life: they’ve been sold or traded to other teams or killed in Vietnam. Life is fairly good, though, all things considered. Nick gets monthly checks from the government (though they will stop next month) and his landlady, Mrs. Raylak, often forgets to collect the rent, being too preoccupied with preparing herself for contact with aliens.

The first part of “A Genuine Monster” is a tour de force character sketch. After a certain number of chapters, however, one wants something to happen. When things do begin to happen, though, the reader wishes David Zielinski had stuck to a short story. The supposed catalysts for action are Nick’s decision to sexually approach LaWanda and Mrs. Raylak’s insistence that Nick accompany her Nebulae Society to the desert to welcome the aliens (“We need more alpha bodies,” she explains). Although we fear that Nick himself will turn out to be the “genuine monster,” that suspense is not enough to carry us through the peculiar and unmotivated events that move the story along.