BOOK REVIEW : Splinters of Love From Novel of Opinion : SPLINTERS, <i> by Erica Heller</i> . William Morrow. $18.95, 299 pages

The opinions expressed in this novel are not necessarily those of the reviewer. The opinion of the author of “Splinters” is: New York men are either low, gross, womanizing, career-obsessed swine, or emotional anorexics, unable to eat, unable to love. The kind of men who only hug with one arm, afraid they might otherwise commit themselves to a relationship.

This world, this New York world! A place where Zabar’s is mentioned once every 100 pages, and woe be unto the reader who doesn’t where or what Zabar’s is, because if you don’t know, the author won’t tell you. (If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.) A world where the vacation spot is East Hampton: “The thing about East Hampton (and Hampton parking lots) in July is that they’re crawling with people you know and who know you, and with people you don’t want to see who don’t want to be seen . . . I suppose some might see it as a plus that you couldn’t even get into the shower out there without expecting to see some face from ’60 Minutes’--some boozy overrated novelist who boasted of supping with Irwin Shaw and James Jones during their halcyon days in Paris . . . “

You can guess from the above that this New York heroine, Stevie, gets around a lot. But Stevie’s air of jaded disdain doesn’t extend to herself: “Can you imagine,” she asks the reader, “an intelligent, 40-year-old woman with more than a tankful of savvy, with charge accounts at Zabar’s and Rizzoli and an honors degree in English Literature . . . ?”

Says she: “I had always been something of, well, I guess I might as well just say it, a looker.. . . I had thick, straight, dark-brown hair . . . this cascading chocolate sauce fell in arched parentheses about my face, and was then cut at the jaw, very Cleopatra . . . my body was as neatly cut as the hair was; very hourglass indeed, with particular attention usually going to the hours of three and nine, if you know what I mean.”

Whatever this dear lady’s problems are, lack of self-esteem isn’t one of them. What her problem is, as this narrative begins, is that, as she’s tending her garden out in the Hamptons, her ex-husband, Charlie Stamberg, jogs up her driveway and demands a cup of coffee.

Charlie is a famous playwright. He has a Pulitzer Prize and a couple of Tony Awards, and we are told that he can be clever and charming, though that doesn’t show up in the text.

Charlie left his first wife, Dolores, for our heroine, Stevie. Then he left Stevie for a 26-year-old Gentile with nice knees. He’s telling the story now that--since this year he’s sure to get the Nobel Prize--he wants his chocolate-sauce wife Stevie back, to go to Stockholm with him to pick up his trophy. (What he really wants, of course is to get all three of his wives back on the string, with a hundred or so extra girlfriends placed in suitable fall-back positions.)

Stevie agonizes. She has this other “boyfriend,” Calvin Persky, the man who hates food, hates sex, and hates affection. Should she choose Calvin the Creep, or Charlie the Creep?

Since Stevie has picked up a $10,000 bonus at the beginning of this novel for doing well at her job, the California reader might suggest that she buy a plane ticket to perhaps Sydney, Australia, or somewhere in the Yukon, or even decent L.A., where nice men stroll the streets, and you can talk to them, and they hug with both arms, and don’t always talk about themselves and their cotton-picking prizes!

But to do that, Stevie would have to desert New York and the Hamptons. She’s caught between choosing a swine and a swine.

The author here is Joseph Heller’s daughter, and I guess we have to believe what she says about New York “geniuses.” Those geniuses should hang their heads in shame, except, by her account, they don’t have any (shame, that is).

I can only repeat: The opinions expressed in this novel are not necessarily those of the reviewer. But, what do I know? I’ve never been to Zabar’s, not even once.

Next: John Wilkes reviews “Inhumane Society: The American Way of Exploiting Animals” by Michael W. Fox (St. Martin’s Press).