Fiction Thorofare by Susan Minot. Rose Marie Vincent, a Catholic mother of seven children living in Marshport, Mass., a Boston suburb, was killed in an automobile accident on her way to the supermarket. The family was grief-stricken, but the father allowed her ashes to remain in a funeral home for a year and a...

A Reporter at Large I-THE EDGE OF THE FOREST by Anthony Bailey. REPORTER AT LARGE about a trip along that portion of the Iron Curtain that forms the border between East and West Germany. Writer's idea was to look as closely as he could at the dividing line between two power blocs and two states formed out of one people, the Germans...

The Current Cinema SILLINESS by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town Integrity Day by William McKibben. Talk story about Integrity Day at Hunter College, where the 87-year-old inventor, Buckminster Fuller, gave an all-day lecture. Fuller's main point seemed to be that people are confronted with a great deal of misinformation through other people's lack of integrity, and that once people find something to...

Musical Events Branch Line by Andrew Porter.

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. Nathalie Sarraute has written an autobiography, "Enfance," that stops at the age of 12. Mme. Sarraute is 83 now. What we call the 'nouveau roman' was an experiment that she began in the early 1930's, writing a book of prose images, "Tropismes," that she sold to the publisher Robert...

Comment by Paul Brodeur. A friend in Boston writes about some commencement addresses given in the vicinity of that city. He tells about the ones delivered by the Mexican writer and statesman Carlos Fuentes at the Harvard commencement on June 9. Fuentes said that intervention by the U.S. in Central America and the Caribbean...

Books The Duke's Child by William Maxwell.

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Our Footloose Correspondents TOASTING HALLEY'S COMET by Gwyneth Cravens. OUR FOOTLOOSE CORRESPONDENTS about a gala held in London by the Halley's Comet Society. Writer admires a bright necktie with an orange comet, which she thinks would be a perfect gift for her friend, Christopher Cerf, an amateur astronomer. Writer meets Bruce Marshall, who is also wearing the bright tie...

Fiction Igor Stravinsky: The Selected Phone Calls by Ian Frazier. Writer assumes that the Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky saved his telephone bills from year to year and before his death donated them to the K-Tel Museum of the Best Composers Ever. Writer then describes what a fascinating picture the phone bills paint. They provide a detailed record of the...

The Talk of the Town User-Friendly by William McKibben. Talk story about a Coliseum trade show earlier this month, made up of personal computers and assorted compatible hard and software. George Garmus, who was helping to publicize the personal-computer expo, explained the computer jargon. 'User-friendly' means making hardware and software easier for someone to operate. Garmus said...

Poetry A Short History of the Middle West by Robert Patrick Dana. Under this corn...

Poetry The Ongoing Story by John Ashbery. I could say it's the happiest period of my life...