"It's like a bad dream," says a character in "The Passions of Uxport." "Something happening to somebody else. A soap opera on TV." And, as Maxine Kumin's second novel unrolls, its domestic crisis and rhythmic interlocutions are also sharply reminiscent of series TV.

The Davises struggle with Sukey's death-wish and suffer the loss of their only child to leukemia. The Peakeses battle reciprocal adultery, the pregnancy of an unmarried niece, the psychosomatic pain in Hallie's stomach. Such troubles compose the condition of man and are valid elements of his drama. Yet here they seem framed within a 21-inch screen, rich and full-color as it is. Introspection throbs through this long book like organ music, and eventually drowns out the action. Can the universal condition be illuminated in terms of Hallie's gut-pain and Sukey's death-wish? Can the definitive question be plumbed in two housewives' neuroses? Can a Main Current...