Suzi Sinzinnati — Joe Bellamy

With highly effective deadpan humor, Bellamy's first novel relates the strenuous tussle between 18-year-old Moke Galenaille's libidinously romantic yearnings and his academic commitment as a pre-med student at Duke. In the summer of 1960, Moke returns to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio (his parents having moved to Florida), and meets up with his high-school sweetheart, Julie, now a student at Smith. Although they have pledged eternal love, planned lives together and corresponded daily, Julie is now engaged to someone else. Swearing eternal devotion to Julie, and celibacy until she returns to him, Moke loses no time in reviving his spirits at a local striptease joint, where he instantly falls for the luscious and lubricious young belly-dancing artiste , Princess Suzi Sinzinnati, and drops her a note. Suzi and her felonious mother, Hazel, are soon Moke's parents' guests in Florida and cruising on the lavish yacht of the orotund preacher ``Doctor'' Elijah Roark, Moke's father's employer. If the final third of the book is a letdown, sometimes seeming labored and trite as Moke grapples with the meaning of life, and if the resolution is thin, overall this sexy romp featuring quirkily engaging and thoroughly human characters is a lighthearted diversion that is likely to disarm and cheer its readers. (Mar.)