THEN SHE FOUND ME by Elinor...

THEN SHE FOUND ME by Elinor Lipman (Washington Square: $7.95). April Epner, the narrator of this comic novel, teaches high school Latin; a bright woman in no-nonsense L. L. Bean flannels and corduroys, she doesn’t suffer fools at all--let alone gladly. After the death of her adoptive parents, genteel Viennese Holocaust survivors, April suddenly is confronted by her birth mother: Bernice Graverman, a desperately up-to-the-minute trendoid who favors designer chic and “toad-sized earrings.” The host of the vulgar local talk show “Bernice G!,” she closes each program with the line “My time with you is precious.” The clash between these unlikely relations forms an agreeable comedy of lifestyles, although the subplot about April discovering that the lanky school librarian is really her Prince Charming seems woefully predictable. The inevitable conflict between April’s academic directness and Bernice’s flamboyant self-dramatization provide the funniest moments in this lightweight novel.