FICTION

SEX WITH STRANGERS by Geoffrey Rees (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $20; 260 pp.) The cities of New York and Chicago are described so beautifully in Geoffrey Rees’ first novel, “Sex With Strangers,” that it’s baffling how the rest of the book could be so full of indulgent, solipsistic characters trying to seem hip as they march grimly through a mediocre plot.

The protagonist, Thomas, is young, gay and alienated from most of the world. His weekly sexual encounters with a train conductor leave him passionate but detached at the same time. When Thomas finally does fall in love, he chooses Stuart, an artist who manages not to have a single likable quality except perhaps his penis which, while not specifically described, must be pretty special or he wouldn’t feel the need to wave it around quite so much.

Rees is obviously talented: “The bridge hummed with traffic, rubber on metal buzzing like a plague of locusts always approaching, never arriving, stuck in a permanent middle distance.” The big problem with “Sex With Strangers,” is the characters’ exaggerated sense of their own importance, which doesn’t seem to be conscious on the author’s part. It’s quite possible that Rees’ characters will eventually catch up to his masterful sense of place and when that happens we will have the pleasure of a really fine piece of work.