Yeats says that a civilization is a struggle for self-control. "The loss of control over thought comes toward the end; first a sinking in upon the moral being, then the last surrender, the irrational cry, revelation—the scream of Juno's peacock." If so, this particular civilization plainly is in deep trouble.

Cultural scouts may find suggestive evidence (if more is needed) in this remarkable, haunting, and very funny first novel by Leonard Michaels [The Men's Club]…. As the narrator, a Berkeley professor, concedes, "Men's groups. Women's groups. They suggest incurable disorders."

On the other hand, The Men's Club seems to be the kind of novel whose strategy is to invite you to understand it too quickly. It is not about the Decline of the West. Though wickedly knowing and accurately, even passionately observed, it is only incidentally a satire on California manners and mores. If Michaels brings back...