BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -- AMERICAN VERTIGO

More than 170 years after Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy -- known to his fans simply as BHL -- spent a year trying to re- create Tocqueville's journey. The result is the entertaining and poetic American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville. "Roads greats and small," BHL writes in the introduction, "mythic roads and forgotten roads; Route 101 from the Oregon border to the Mexican frontier; Route 1, Robert Kramer's road, but taken backward, toward Florida; Route 49, along the Sierra Nevada; Route 61, from north to south; Route 66, or at least what's left of it, west of the Grand Canyon, where the phantoms of The Grapes of Wrath still hover; numbered roads; official roads; roads that have been paved, planned, and standardized." Despite prevailing anti-Americanism in France, BHL leaves his preconceptions at home. Surprisingly enough, his enthusiastic ode to America has managed to piss off an awful lot of people anyway. The last thing we want, it would seem, is to be complimented by a Frenchman: The shame of it! Garrison Keillor, reviewing American Vertigo for The New York Times Book Review, seemed as annoyed by Levy's hyperbolic compliments as by his insightful derogatory statements, concluding his review with, "Thanks for coming. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." A few days later, The New York Times reviewer William Grimes wrote of Levy: "When he drops a phrase like 'the mythic cities of Tennessee,' where are we exactly? Chattanooga?" Personally, I like to accept compliments regardless of their source -- especially when made by someone who writes with such enjoyable, poetic bluster as Levy. (Chris Kemp) Grade: A

JULIAN BARNES -- ARTHUR & GEORGE

JULIAN BARNES -- ARTHUR & GEORGE (KNOPF)

George Edalji is a shy young man, the son of an Indian father and Scottish mother, who grows up in an English country town where his father is the Anglican priest. Arthur Conan Doyle is born into genteel poverty in Catholic Edinburgh, grows up to become a doctor and the creator of the world's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. How their lives intersect is based on an actual case in which Edalji enlisted Sir Arthur's assistance in clearing his name of false charges, allowing Edjali to resume his law practice. Julian Barnes, a prolific and celebrated British author, is both factual and fabulist in rendering Arthur and George as sharing more than either would care to admit. Both inhabit parallel universes: Arthur's is the world of knights in shining armor, chivalry and quests; George maintains unshaken belief in England and its legal system and in their real worlds; both were excessively close to one parent. Barnes is at his best in the passages creating Arthur and George's interior lives as they struggle to respond to family, notoriety and the British legal system. Sir Arthur's ruminations to convince himself that he has not deceived his wife when he falls in love with another woman are brilliant, as are George's reactions to his persecution and trial. Barnes is less successful as Arthur takes on George's case; dialogue bogs down into bad Jeeves and Wooster routines. Sir Arthur's obsession with spiritualism is never fully developed although its basis appears in the first chapter. Even the book's final sequence is drawn out for far too long, as if Barnes were seeking a better closing. In the end, the characters are far more fascinating than the event. (Anne Arenstein) Grade: B

LINDA CARROLL -- HER MOTHER'S DAUGHTER

LINDA CARROLL -- HER MOTHER'S DAUGHTER (DOUBLEDAY)

Don't judge a book by the author's famously deranged daughter. In Her Mother's Daughter, Linda Carroll maintains the fine line between telling her story and capitalizing on the fame of her eldest daughter, Courtney Love. There is plenty of the requisite drugs, sex and hippie social rebellion, but that describes Linda, not the former Hole frontwoman. Carroll's narrative memoir begins with an emotionally distant mother and a sexually inappropriate father, both of whom are quick to tell others their daughter is adopted. Growing up in San Francisco during the turbulent '50s and '60s, Carroll finds herself pregnant and in a loveless marriage by the age of 18. It's evident early on that young Courtney is a problem child. This is where the book could go awry. However, Carroll focuses on her own story instead of capitalizing on her infamous daughter. Carroll's hippie commune lifestyle leads her through four marriages and seven children. As her relationship with Courtney falls apart, Carroll wonders increasingly about the woman who gave her up as a baby. When the call comes that Courtney is pregnant, Carroll can no longer deny the urge to find her biological mother. Carroll's writing style is like catching up with an old friend over a cup of hot tea. Admittedly, it's hard to believe she actually remembers the conversations she recounts in the book. But Her Mother's Daughter is a well-written, honest piece of narrative nonfiction. If you're looking for a juicy tell-all about Courtney Love, you won't find it here. Love might be the pull, but it's Carroll's emotional journey to self-acceptance and fulfillment that will draw in even the most skeptical reader. (Tana Weingartner) Grade: B+

MARK LOUIS LEHMAN -- MOCKY'S REVINGE

MARK LOUIS LEHMAN -- MOCKY'S REVINGE (LITTLE POSSUM PRESS)

Set in rural America where pickups decay in junked-up yards and a lonely little girl rides her bike along the berm, Mark Louis Lehman's Mocky's Revinge brings to life characters that are often taken as stereotypes. Nine-year-old Carrie Ann Watson relates the tale of the summer her uncle Mocky, a gay professor of French, visits her home in rural Granton, Ohio, seeking reconciliation with his dying father. Carrie's narrative is both ingenuous and bitingly adult with intelligence and sarcasm beyond her years -- until we learn that she's a latchkey kid from a broken home living among problematic adults. Written in dialect, this novelette's grammatical errors (gleaned from Lehman's career as an English instructor) become a wordplay commentary on the contradictions between a child's vision and an adult world. Lehman doesn't pass up a pun or double entendre if it can be bent to a jocular illustration of things as they literally are, rather than as we have been taught to see them. Mocky and Carrie watch Last Tangle in Pairs. Carrie resolves to tell a story that's "fair and not bi-assed." While funny, malapropisms are as much a result of Carrie's clarity of vision as they are of ignorance. Much of the fun of this book derives from the evident pleasure both Lehman and his young narrator take in the fairytale sheen shed by its linguistic tricks. Carrie is no Cinderella but a "little human tape recorder" in a well-constructed drama of balanced elements combining stylistic thrills with transparent readability. Readers who eschew any hint of a morality tale might squirm to arrive at "Mocky's revinge," but it is a hard reader who can resist the pluck of Lehman's agile fingers. (Cedric Rose) Grade: A