Sporting With Amaryllis

Paul West, author of 16 previous novels, writes in language so vivid and so precise that the streets of 17th-century London leap off the page in all their smelly, filthy ambiance. Even the young Milton is a collection of smells, tastes, and textures over which a thick patina of fevered genius is laid. And Amaryllis herself--prostitute, first love, poetic muse--is more than what she seems, a fact that gives this slim volume an unexpected twist at the end.