MOON PALACE <i> by Paul Auster (Penguin: $7.95) </i>

An odd, claustrophobic novel about a passive young man who stumbles onto the mystery of his ancestry through a series of bizarre coincidences. Marco Stanley Fogg’s commitment to inaction eventually reduces him to sleeping in Central Park and eating out of garbage cans. Paul Auster’s evocations of the rituals with which the homeless fill their hours constitute the most compelling writing in the book.

Rescued from life in the park by his friends, Fogg discovers a convoluted family history involving a decaying artist, his son and his grandson--a set of interlocking stories so wildly improbable that they seem credible. Auster’s daft, illogical logic makes this novel curiously readable.