Budding prospects A pastoral

Felix Nasmyth is 33, divorced, living in San Francisco--where he does nothing much. So, when approached by an acquaintance, a venture-capitalizing connoisseur of all good things named Vogelsang, Felix shows some interest in a marijnana-growing project. And Vogelsang, with help from his punk-rocker girlfriend Aorta and intense young botanist Dowst, eventually does get Felix signed up. Result? Felix and two rolling-stone friends, Gesh and Phil, go up to a ""summer camp"" in the Mendecino hills, where they clear and plant and fence--and then wait for the plants to grow: $150,000 is the promised share of the yield for each farmer. But of course things don't go nearly that smoothly: there's a sadistic and crazed state trooper named Jerp-back to contend with, as well as a loony neighbor. Furthermore, above all, the three friends' own excessive paranoia renders them helpless and graceless at every turn. Boyle (The Descent of Man, Water Music) plays all this with neither the sly hilarity of his first book nor the self-conscious asynchronism of the second. Instead, the novel's energy is invested in its relentlessly grubby descriptions and exclamations--which is why it soon seems to be more a literary exercise in comic writing than a genuine comic novel. Moreover, the story holds few surprises: predictable misadventures in badness by the essentially and ineptly good. Formulaic, conventional work, then, from a writer who usually comes up with more sparkle and originality in his comedy. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.