It is more than eight years since Joyce Maynard wrote "An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life," her wry New York Times magazine article about growing up among the jaded youth of the 60's. "Baby Love," her first novel, is an entirely different sort of work … but there's much in it that recalls "Looking Back." The tone is the same: right on target, cued to the rangy, slangy rhythms of modern life, though lacking the embarrassing archness that characterized the earlier piece. There is the same acute awareness of the present moment, or at least, of the present moment as perceived by the public. Television is a constant force. So are sensational headlines, self-improvement articles, pop heroes, rock songs and glossy advertisements. (p. 8)

["Baby Love" starts out] as a kind of informal sociological study, focusing on a group of poorly equipped, poorly educated young people with limited dreams, their...