Men In Black

Scott Spencer's gabby hero is a floundering novelist named Sam Holland whose hack book about flying saucers becomes a runaway best-seller, the Bible of UFO loonies from coast to coast. For reasons unrelated to UFOs, family man Sam has an affair with a younger woman that nearly turns into a Fatal Attraction; Sam's teenage son runs off to join a gang of burglars; and Sam's wife sleeps with a detective hired to find the son. Predictable soap-opera plotting, repetitious padding, and irrelevant sidetracks (like six pages on why Sam's mother-in-law is mad at his wife) can't sink Men In Black, a worthy tale of a man struggling with what it is to be a father, a failure, and a decent human being seeking self-respect. B-