["A Fortunate Madness" shares the characteristics of a spate of novels which have] appeared lately. Written by talented young women who have starred in creative writing classes taught by distinguished practitioners of the craft, these novels, thinly veiled autobiographies, perhaps, have as their characters: (1) a sensitive, brusque, truthful, attractive young woman who wars with her mother and affluent middle-class values; (2) lean, studiously literary husband who does not communicate with creative wife; (3) one child, the pulled wishbone in the husband-wife battle. The locale of these novels: graduate school classes and faculty parties; seedy Thrift-Shop-furnished apartments; the compulsory year abroad (usually England) so that the conflict in values can be underlined; and, finally, the idyllic nature scene in which the revelation about life's meaning occurs. The style: overwhelming use of dialogue, especially stichomythia (the reader has to go back to figure out which character says what); familiar brand names (the...