In two earlier books … Richard Price has documented the proud, cheerless world of New York City's white working-class youths, and the special bind of high school camaraderie. In Ladies' Man that mystique emerges, ambivalently, as the romantic anchor for Kenny's faltering confidence.

Price risks everything on the persuasiveness of his hero's voice, for the plot is static and the story has all the structure of a skin flick (which may be intentional). Kenny's speech verges on the solipsistic, yet is energized by urban patois ("did up some coffee," "whigged," "riffed"). It reflects both bravado and a panicky need to ward off the bad stuff he meets on the street ("I mean, I wasn't no depresso, was I?").

Though its gaminess will offend many readers, Ladies' Man is a remarkably sustained portrait of a present-day underground man. (p. 116)

Laura Mathews, in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1978 by The Atlantic Monthly...