THE WOODEN SEA

Imagine Raymond Carver putting pen to paper after a generous hit of LSD and you're close to imagining the tenor of Carroll's fantastical novels, which manage at once to be poignant, wise, and wildly weird. In The Wooden Sea, a small-town police chief is enjoying a simple life in upstate New York when a three-legged, one-eyed dog walks into his office and drops dead; soon the cop is off on an adventure that involves hanging out with aliens at a Grand Union, listening to a Rottweiler sing Aretha Franklin's ''Respect,'' and befriending himself at age 17. Part time-travel fantasy, part rumination on God and fate, Sea thrives on Carroll's carefully calibrated cynicism, utterly engaging characters, and serious sense of fun. B+