There is no need to overpraise "The Men's Club." It is more novella than "important" novel. Only three of its characters are developed enough to be in any way memorable; the narrator in particular remains ghostly, his profession and participation never made credible. Toward the end, the satire of California encounter-group jargon becomes too broad … and blunts the wittiness that elsewhere prevails. But such weaknesses inflict little damage. "The Men's Club" is excellent comedy with a mouth-puckering aftertaste, a book for head-shaking and long sighs of recognition as well as laughter. Its style is full of small verbal surprises that match the glancing quality of its insights.

Evidently the shifting of his fictional scene from New York to the Bay Area has been good for Mr. Michaels's art. There is a new expansiveness, an ease, in the writing of "The Men's Club" that distinguishes it from the rather...