A Whistling Woman (2002)

'WOMAN' ISSUES Byatt's latest includes seemingly unrelated subplots that come together at the explosive end

Booker winner A.S. Byatt (''Possession'') ends the quartet on English life she began in 1979's ''The Virgin in the Garden'' with A Whistling Woman, a bold, brainy eulogy to the late '60s. Heroine Frederica Potter -- now a single mother in her 30s -- lands a job hosting ''Through the Looking-Glass,'' a groovily postmodern talk show. Frederica's fractured home, work, and love life reflect Byatt's primary concern, the splintering of self and society. But the story proves fragmented too, as myriad subplots -- including one about hippies who create an ''anti-university'' and another about a cult headed by a dangerous schizophrenic -- barely come together for the fiery finale. The plethora of characters sometimes drowns out the ''whistling woman'' (presumably free-spirited Frederica), but Byatt's clashes between the intimate and the intellectual make for a raucous, lively work.