BOOK REVIEW : New ‘Sylvia’ Names Its Author : SYLVIA, <i> by Howard Fast,</i> Birch Lane Press, $17.95; 332 pages

When Howard Fast wrote this novel in 1955, he was so beleaguered, so obsessed with questions of right and wrong, that it seems to have somewhat skewed his vision as a novelist.

Fast had been a noble martyr of the Hollywood blacklist. He had defied the Establishment and had self-published “Spartacus.” He had published other deserving people, but had come to a dead end with that venture. When he began to write again, he was forced to present “Sylvia” under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. This edition of that book marks the first time it is being published under his own name. The novel, Fast tells us in a new foreword, was a smash when it came out.

The evolution of Fast’s career--simply as a novelist--requires 700 pages rather than 700 words. His early politically inspired works invariably set up a cast of enormously lovable characters who were then destroyed by an essentially pitiless capitalist society. They made little girls (like me) cry.

After his heroic battle with “Spartacus,” Fast wrote larger, longer, more commercial historical novels. His mini-series mentality and his astonishing work habits have made him rich, respected and so on. And yet, the under-siege attitude persists. The introduction here is not really about “Sylvia” but about “Spartacus,” a few of those scoundrels who betrayed him and his marvelous economic success in France. You want to say, “ Chill , Howard!” But I suppose writers who have been through the dehumanizing indignities of the blacklist can never, never chill.

“Sylvia” is set up in the form of a standard detective novel. Alan Macklin is hired by California millionaire Frederick Summers to check out the past of Sylvia West, his new fiancee.

Sylvia owns an acre of land in Coldwater Canyon, raises prize-winning roses, is independently wealthy and fluent in French, Spanish and Chinese. But the story of her past doesn’t check out, so Summers hires Macklin to find out the truth. (Already we’re in trouble here, because someone as exceptional as Sylvia would have put together a better story.)

Macklin is definitely in the wrong line of work. He used to be a student of ancient history, but since his parents died in a fire, he’s been too sad, too demoralized, to do anything but be a private cop. Macklin hates it, just hates it. He has no sense of setting the system right, of going down mean streets because he must. He is convinced that he is garbage for accepting a routine job to check out Sylvia’s past.

A UCLA professor deconstructs Sylvia’s published poetry for clues to her origin and reveals that she hails from Pittsburgh. Soon Macklin finds that Sylvia came from the poorest of the poor, that she was raped by her father, that she loved books, became a hooker when she was about 14, spent time (on her back) south of the border, made it to New York (where the owner of a penny arcade taught her passable Mandarin Chinese) and went then to Los Angeles, where she nabbed Summers, the heartless millionaire.

This would make a swell story except that the characters get all philosophical with each other. A priest in Juarez, handing Macklin a tortilla, observes, “We people of the earth have something most profound in common. The bread of man’s life is very profound and very true.”

Later, Macklin opines, “There can be nothing as cold and deadly as an evening of pedagogues frozen in their timidity of thought and multifold institutional fears, or pompous and irrational in their half-knowledge and their book-bound ignorance. . . .”

Too true! But there can also be nothing as irritating as not checking out your fantasy with the facts of the real world as we know them. A professor at UCLA offers Macklin a job as a teaching assistant, just because he wants him. That’s not how it works--never, never was.

Fast misquotes the Shakespearean song about Sylvia in not one but two places. Even 32 years later, he can’t be bothered looking it up.

Finally, the novel is a setup so that the narrator can “rescue” Sylvia, the “fallen” woman, make her an “honest” woman by introducing her to true love and the academic life. That rescue fantasy has an ancient lineage of its own. It’s as strong as it is embarrassing.

Following it through the body of Fast’s work, in both political and personal terms, could be the stuff of a very good 700-page doctoral dissertation.