STRAIGHT THROUGH THE NIGHT <i> by Edward Allen (Soho: $9.95) </i>

This dark, despairing novel takes the form of a rather muddied stream of consciousness. Having abandoned his upper-middle-class background, Chuck Deckle struggles to support himself by working in the meat-packing industry, despite his demonstrable lack of skill. Utterly maladroit, he blunders from one professional and emotional failure to another: Edward Allen’s secondary characters exist only to act as snares for his wistful, thick-witted hero.

The last third of the book takes a distinctly nasty turn: Chuck indentures himself to a pair of viciously bigoted Kosher butchers, who cruelly abuse him. The anti-Semitic overtones--which Allen tries unsuccessfully to defuse--caused reviewers to call “Straight Through the Night” “disturbing” (among other things) when it first was issued.