The first half of The Fan Club, like The Prize (1962), interweaves multiple stories. The reader follows the formation of the club as each man's individual sexual disappointments gradually lead him to join the conspiracy.

The next quarter of the novel concentrates in clinical detail on Sharon's repeated ravishment at an isolated cabin. The last quarter flashes between Hollywood where Sharon's rescuers search for clues and the cabin where the abductors' harmony rapidly breaks down.

Wallace attempts one narrative variation: Parts of the story are told through "Adam Malone's Notebook."

Written in the first person by the club's historian, the notebook takes the reader through Adam's passionate, disturbed mind. These passages are chilling juxtapositions of logical thought and bizarre fantasies. Unfortunately the notebook selections are brief, randomly placed, and underused.

The Fan Club, like all Wallace novels, benefits from the author's attention to setting and detail. Carefully the novelist...