THE SUPER SUMMER OF JAMIE Mc-BRIDE

By Christopher S. Wren '57 andJack Shepherd. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1971. 256 pp. $5.95.

Authors Wren '57 and Shepherd unleash an episodic lampoon-survey of contemporary extremist phenomena, a kind of Mack Sennett two-reeler in freaked-out sound and light, highlighting the quest of Jamie McBride, 13-year-old protagonist, and his dedicated counter-culture paramour, 21-year-old Constant Flowersong. The tale is by turns hilarious, graphic, entertaining, contrived, and distressing. Because the couple encounter every ritual madness and bizarre pose of our instant-pop era, they are bound to hit highs and lows.

Disrupting eighth-grade graduation with a "Trust No One Over 15" protest, Jamie vaults into the arms of virginal Constant, fresh from her cause-a-year career at Croftbrier College. Part one of the plot is prolonged "coitus preventus," on the beach and at home. They rap with "Father Andy" who has "this groovy thing with Jesus (the Big Fella)." Consummation finally occurs in a California commune promoting "translove energetics"—before 19 million potential viewers of a film documentary! The funniest sexual encounter happens during guerilla maneuvers, Jamie hard at work while Constant reads aloud the exploits of a Chinese people's heroine named Faithful Lotus.

Juxtaposing contraries is the chief comic method. "Professional anarchist" Wilton Ball operates a huge, profitable monopoly of communes, clothing stores, and associated revolutionary services. Guru Essence at the Institute of Joy is a former Ranger sergeant who issues from the supply room: "Loin- cloths, silk, two, ritual black." The Institute's program of karma-harmonizing and nude marathons is wholly projected from tapes. Frenetic burlesque, such as the climactic riot at the Child Study Center of a large university, is the other staple.

There are jocund prizes for every reader here, but it is difficult to satirize the real counter-culture by extension and hyperbole. Hard-headed, youthfully honest Jamie, sprung from jail in time for JV football practice at St. Cuthbert's, manages to keep uproarious and ritualized aberrations from swamping the book, and he and Constant are its most attractive features.

Mr. White teaches English at Fisher JuniorCollege in Boston.