The Good Husband

The Good Husband Gail Godwin (Ballantine, $22.95) A Godwin novel offers substantial pleasures: complex characters, canny insights into human nature woven into narratives of painstaking realism, sprinklings of literary wisdom, and ruminations on creativity. In her ninth, and best, novel, Godwin gets the mix just right. Four fascinating people in a small college town ponder the mystery of successful marriage, while grappling with inoperable cancer, writer's block, academic backbiting, and the loss of a baby. As two very different unions are destroyed at the hands of the ultimate ''good husband''- death (Godwin borrows the metaphor from a John Donne poem)- we learn that no marriage, turbulent or placid, comes without a price. Although the academic setting is a bit tired, not much else misses the mark in this big, sumptuous book. A- -Rhonda Johnson