[It is] only to be expected that a new Gilbert Sorrentino novel is going to provoke skeptical whispers if it seems to have a "narrative"—one of the dirtiest words in the Lamont/Sorrentino world of "Sur-fiction … Ur-fiction, and Post-Modern fiction to boot." A veteran of Mulligan Stew might do a particular double-take, too, at the new book's title page: Aberration of Starlight is published by Random (Hasard) House. Is this the same Gilbert Sorrentino? Now that he's buried the novel (along with most of its critics), is he back to rob the grave?

One thing is unquestionable: whether or not Sorrentino intended to be telling a story in Aberration of Starlight, he definitely has one. And there's not a single poet or other literary sitting duck on the premises. No, this is close-up family drama, unmistakably autobiographical—the sort of material that many first novelists find themselves...