At the outset ["Who Is Angelina?"] seems like another of those 1960-ish self-indulgent explorations into the head of a vapid intellectual—dressed up for the 1970's with a liberal dose of drugs and sex.

But "Who Is Angelina?" is more than that. It is a most compelling novel about a young woman's search for truth, for her identity, in a series of hostile environments….

We could ask why Al Young wrote about a contemporary woman who does not really question traditional female stereotypes, who does not fret over her and her friends' view of life as a series of male-dominated experiences.

The temptation is to ask why Al Young wrote about an intelligent, educated, nearly bourgeois black when the downtrodden, ignorant, poverty stricken, or coyly cynical stereotypes are so much more glamorous today.

But, in fact, Angelina need be neither a woman nor black. She represents that classical...