As critics have often noted, Epstein's fiction—especially P. D. Kimerakov … bears a large resemblance to Saul Bellow's. And this disappointing new novel [Regina] is the most Bellovian of all: a sociological/spiritual mosaic that could conceivably be subtitled Mrs. Sammler's Revival. Regina Glassman is a divorced, 40-ish movie-and-drama critic, in her youth an actress. On leave from her New York writing job at a magazine, she's unexpectedly called back to the stage: a revival of The Sea Gull, the play in which she'd had her tyro triumph. Blindly, vainly, she believes that she's been again tapped for the part of young Nina, only to arrive at rehearsal to find out that she's been cast, quite reasonably, as old Arkadina. And this initial scene of embarrassment is the novel's best, most affecting section, a play upon the shame of illusion. Thereafter, however, the book slips precipitously. Manhattan is...