Older and less brilliant in his new book, "Obituaries," William Saroyan is still defying the rules, still the daring young man on the flying trapeze. Characteristically, this latest performance has a bit of the stunt in it, like a pie-eating contest or a six-day bicycle race. It might even be described as a death-defying leap, for "Obituaries" is a book about death. Its pretext—and here is the stunt—is that Mr. Saroyan will write about each of the 200 or so names listed in the Necrology section of Variety's annual review of the year 1976. Reading through the names, Mr. Saroyan discovered that he had known 28 of them; the others are strangers….

Mr. Saroyan considers each name in turn, letting it trigger a flood of reminiscences, thoughts, digressions, observations, paeans, sour notes and epiphanies. He keeps at it day after day, standing at his desk, typing away. He is...