Finalists for the 1992-1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes : ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION

LOVE ENTER by Paul Kafka (Houghton Mifflin). L-O-V-E is the access code that main character, Dan Shoenfeld, uses to get into his computer; when he hits the “Save to Memory” key, he calls up the Paris days five years earlier when he was entering the world of love. Now, as an obstetrics intern in a New Orleans hospital, he spends the midnight hours between births composing letters to his three friends from Parisian days. Like a dream, the remembered relationships are enigmatic and beautiful as they form an epistolary love story. The longing is palpable and poignant as he tries to understand the dimensions and the facets of the loves they shared and even now, can’t seem to shake.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists and winners are selected in each category by an independent panel of judges. Winners will be announced in the Book Review issue of October 31.