Oak Street Beach

It's puzzling why the late Rose chose to pluck a character from his novel The Pooles of Pismo Bay , the chronicle of a fictitious family that led the radical Industrial Workers of the World union, and throw him into this weird adventure in 1950s Chicago. The aging Reuben Poole, an ``extinct labor activist,'' feels that he has little in common with the postwar generation, and for good reason. In the course of a day, he observes a brutal beating on a Chicago beach, rescues the victim and is the object of cruel witticisms from a group of arrogant, upper-class picnickers. Mercifully brief, the book concludes with a long, rambling and decidedly bizarre ``what if'' section: how would the then-fledgling State of Israel react if a fake messiah were to visit? In case the reader isn't thoroughly bewildered, Rose makes matters even more obscure in the last pages by repeatedly citing a pseudo-Biblical verse (``Holy, Hcap ok?yes/pk oly, blessed be!'') and a line from an Israeli song (``Zum gallee gallee''). (June)