The kindest interpretation one can put on "Maybe," Lillian Hellman's new book, is that it is a parody of contemporary fiction. Non sequiturs, gratuitous acts, frustrating ellipses, ambiguities, a dearth of emotion: Miss Hellman avails herself of all these current techniques in telling a story that she keeps telling us may not be a story at all.

On every page, sentences begin with I've forgotten, I don't remember, I don't know, I am no longer sure. This encourages us to suppose that "Maybe" may be about the antics of memory, the elusiveness of truth or character…. No one, she suggests, can possess the whole truth with any confidence.

"Maybe" is described on the dust jacket as "a story," yet Miss Hellman presents herself, her husband and Dashiell Hammett, with whom she lived for years, as characters in the book, and the events seem to be offered as autobiography...