BOOK REVIEW : Families and Relationships, ‘92-Style : DOMESTIC LIFE; A Novel in Parts <i> by Paula Webb</i> ; Simon & Schuster $19; 224 pages

When Ellen moved in with Kenneth, his 3-year-old daughter Tenny may actually have seemed an added attraction: a chance to investigate motherhood twice a week and on alternate weekends, and impress Kenneth with her talents.

There would be nothing unusual about the arrangement, except that Kenneth is not quite divorced from his flaky wife, Raylene. But maybe that’s not so exceptional either; relationship novels are a barometer of the times, and the fact that Ellen decides to have a child of her own puts “Domestic Life” right on the leading edge.

What we have is an examination of contemporary family values guaranteed to unsettle those who still entertain visions of Mom, Dad, Sis and Junior taking their places in the breakfast nook--a picture that seems to have virtually no connection to real life in America in 1992.

Ellen, the narrator, is a frustrated painter. She is holding down a responsible day job at a Houston art museum so that Kenneth can continue to play rock ‘n’ roll whenever and wherever he can land a gig. A sweet but somewhat abstract figure, Kenneth seems representative of what’s out there for bright, energetic women like Ellen, who were 22 one day and 35 the next.

Though Ellen has an agreeably tart style and tremendous resilience, circumstances are beginning to sour her disposition and erode her patience. Raylene, who was to have been only a temporary impediment to the arrangement, has turned out to be a permanent nuisance.

Six years have passed and she still hasn’t signed the final divorce papers; the current state of affairs, with Kenneth and Ellen functioning as dependable baby-sitters, suits Raylene right down to the ground.

Kenneth may be a bit low on ambition, but he’s a terrific daddy, and Ellen has persuaded him that she’s the perfect role model for his daughter. The problem is that Tenny is a nasty and manipulative child whose witchiness is constantly reinforced by her mother. At 3, Tenny was merely difficult; at 9, she’s approaching mature monsterhood; by 12, she’s achieved it.

Though Paul Webb generally manages to make Ellen’s trials diverting, the reader can’t help but wonder why such a capable woman would allow herself to remain trapped in this impossible bind and deliberately complicate matters by bringing another child into the situation.

Though she consults therapists and attorneys, no one in this book ever seems to have heard the word ultimatum. For at least three-quarters of the novel, matters remain at status quo--Raylene imposing upon Ellen and Kenneth, Tenny wreaking general havoc, Kenneth watching helplessly as his not-quite-ex-wife, his daughter and his lover contend with one another.

Just when the tension and the redundancy threaten to become unendurable, Ellen has her son, Zack. The crisis is exactly what the novel needs most, and offers the narrator an opportunity to introduce additional characters. When we meet Ellen’s parents, a pair of well-meaning vagabonds, we begin to understand her yearning for security at all costs.

A few shrewdly observed social events in Houston are enough to persuade us that life with an aging hippie who’s happy only when playing rock ‘n’ roll with “a whole group of bald people” might be preferable to the other available options; might in fact be the wisest possible choice for the narrator, if not the only conceivable one.