BOOK REVIEW / NOVEL : A Homemaker’s Dull Life Takes Some Unexpected Turns : THE PROPERTIES OF WATER, <i> by Ann Hood</i> ; Doubleday, $22.50, 288 pages

Josie Jericho Hunter’s life seems almost anachronistic, and when this novel opens, anything but enviable. She lives in East Essex, Rhode Island, a mill town that has been deteriorating steadily over the last half century. Once brisk and clear, the Pottowamicut River now flows sluggishly, made brown and sudsy by the town’s soap factory, virtually the only remaining industry. Soap ought to have an appealing scent, but the haze that drifts over the town is surprisingly disagreeable.

When the novel begins, Josie’s bright, talented daughter, Maggie, has embraced adolescent rebellion with a vengeance, and Josie and her husband, Will, have long since run out of conversation (passion, in fact, had barely survived their honeymoon).

Josie’s over-indulged 5-year-old, Kate, is her only joy, and not always that. Josie can’t remember when she had last felt thrilled about anything, and she’s in no hurry to hear her mother’s often-repeated maxim, “Thrills are what you get on roller coasters. Not in life. Not in East Essex.”

Josie is bored and restless, and for a chapter or two, so is the reader, perhaps exactly the reaction the author intends. “The Properties of Water” is as close to being an interactive novel as you’ll find between hard covers. When the pace of Josie’s life picks up, you’ll feel as if you’ve given her a lecture and a shove into the ‘90s.

Chances to change her life, to get away from East Essex, have come and gone. Josie thought about going back to school for a degree in nursing, or child development, or something, but settled instead for her dreary domestic routine. When Will was offered a promotion that meant relocating to Arizona, Josie persuaded him to turn it down. Finally, Josie heard herself telling her husband that life wasn’t about thrills, but about what they had right there in East Essex.

By her mid-30s, Josie had turned into her mother, although she hadn’t quite realized it until today, her daughter Kate’s fifth birthday, as she was walking up to her parents’ front door. She knew exactly what she’d find inside--her mother and aunts sitting around the dining room table, drinking coffee and interpreting each other’s dreams according to a numerical system devised by Josie’s grandmother.

*

These days, the sisters used the system to play the state lottery. Today, there was one startling difference--a For Sale sign on the front lawn, proof that her mother had recognized a fact that Josie was still trying to deny. Her father wasn’t merely tired or run down, but was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and could no longer manage the responsibilities of a homeowner.

The sign jolts Josie into phoning her sister Michaela, whom she hasn’t seen for several years. Michaela hadn’t wasted a minute in getting out of East Essex, moving first to New York and then to California; trying out every alternative lifestyle the ‘70s and ‘80s had to offer.

Michaela is living in San Francisco now, and when she calls Josie back, she’s so flippant about the sale of the family house that Josie can hardly believe it when Michaela turns up shortly thereafter; not just for a quick visit, but to live in East Essex--the place she couldn’t wait to flee.

In the meantime, the pace of the novel has picked up considerably. Josie’s car is hijacked at the local mall, and she’s left stunned on the Tarmac, so dazed and battered that she doesn’t think to phone the police from a nearby restaurant, but instead walks to her parents’ house, unable to account for four hours of elapsed time between the encounter and her reappearance.

In rapid succession, Will asks for a divorce, the town floods in a torrential rainstorm, and errant Michaela returns; forcing Josie to confront unresolved sisterly conflicts as well as filial and marital problems. Although the reason for Michaela’s flight from East Essex is telegraphed early on, the effect upon Josie is cataclysmic.

What had been her humdrum, comfortable life is suddenly in smithereens, transforming Josie Jericho Hunter from a placid homemaker into a metaphor for a decade. If she seems under-qualified for so crucial a role, she’s not alone.