[In "Two for the Seesaw," author] William Gibson has a deft, buoyant, rapid-fire flair for dialogue, he is perfectly able to keep an evening moving in spite of all the telephoning and his eye for accurately-observed detail is excellent.

What he hasn't quite mastered at the moment … is the business of sustaining a psychology, a troubled and uncertain state of mind, through all of its possible dramatic complexities. [Jerry Ryan meets Gittel Mosca] while he is in the process of divorcing his wife. He has, he tells us, been accepting emotional and financial "handouts" all his life; it is time he helped someone else. Thereafter he is torn between [Gittel] who does need his help, and the wife whose spiritual presence he cannot shake.

The seesaw rides up and down. But the force of gravity that brings it earthward each time is never powerfully felt. The wife seems...