THE LOST DIARIES OF FRANS HALS ...

THE LOST DIARIES OF FRANS HALS by Michael Kernan (St. Martin’s Griffin: $12.95; 316 pp.). Peter Van Overloop, the hero of Michael Kernan’s delightful novel, is a graduate student adrift at the fringes of the New York intellectual world. Van Overloop finds himself at the center of a major scandal when he translates four mysterious volumes that may be the private journal of the great Dutch portraitist, Frans Hals. Working from what little is known about Hals’ life, Kernan skillfully creates a novel within a novel. As Van Overloop watches Hals struggle to survive amid the Calvinists and capitalists of 17th-Century Haarlam, the artist becomes a substitute father to the aimless student: Hals’ ability to love in adverse circumstances spurs Van Overloop to emerge from his shell and live.