FIRST FICTION

NORMAL GIRL By Molly Jong-Fast; Villard: 146 pp., $21.95 In Molly Jong-Fast’s adrenaline surge of a first novel, her spoiled Upper East Side teen narrator, Miranda Wolk (known as Randa), has a flair for spitting out adolescent wisdom like little wads of well-chewed Dentyne: “[C]hildren of famous people are like communism--better in concept than in practice.”

Because Jong-Fast is the 21-year-old daughter of Erica Jong and Jonathan Fast (as the book’s accompanying publicity makes absolutely clear), it would be irresponsible for a reviewer not to grab the nearest pencil and underline that turn of phrase. But this rather self-conscious self-reference is more of a tease than a revelation, and so is “Normal Girl,” a stylish yet slight account of Randa’s life of sarcasm among the frigidly rich and fashionably correct, and of her descent into an abyss--well-appointed, of course--of addiction.

Randa relies on shallowness and pharmaceuticals to keep sane, but she has dangerously few illusions, describing herself as “a card-carrying member of the nothing-to-say generation.” Indeed, most of what Randa has to say comes out in deeds: ducking into the ladies’ room for a quick fix at her boyfriend’s funeral, trashing her mom’s house in Greenwich, getting snozzled on martinis at work and undergoing the ultimate rich-kid rite of passage: a trip to Hazelden for detox.

There’s undeniable immediacy in Jong-Fast’s reportage, but one can’t ignore the words of one of Randa’s pals: “It’s hard to muster up any sympathy for someone like you. Rich kids who blow their lives on drugs. God, Randa. You’re not even the very least original.”

STACKING IN RIVERTOWN By Barbara Bell; Simon & Schuster: 304 pp., $23

Rivertown is the name a little girl gives a cemetery near a river where the local dead are stacked in coffins, “laid out in shelves.” The girl grows up under a number of guises, undergoing her own rituals of death and rebirth an extraordinary, if far-fetched, number of times in Barbara Bell’s violent, lyrical and overstuffed tall tale about memory, identity, role-playing and a woman (that girl, grown up) who spends a disturbing amount of time being beaten black and blue, having gags stuffed in her mouth and getting locked up in boxes.

As “Beth,” she spends five years in New York under lock and key to Ben, a sadistic pimp who trains her in extreme sadomasochism; as “Clarisse,” she escapes, marries a boring man and writes a novel that becomes a cult hit. But her past lures her back to Ben, who’s now determined to keep her in chains forever; Clarisse is equally determined to get free, even if it means death. The ensuing escape involves a fake suicide, a stack of false IDs, a carload of weaponry and a steady westward migration until the famous, incognito Clarisse, now known as Becca, lands a job in a Berkeley restaurant and a relationship with a lesbian pop star.

But Ben--now revealed as a serial killer--is on Becca’s trail, and she discovers that her real name is Terri, and that her stepfather violated her, too, making this a masochistic fantasy that’s securely cuffed to its own obsessions yet determined to pummel the reader into submission.

A & R By Bill Flanagan; Random House: 436 pp., $23.95

Bill Flanagan is the author of a book about U2 and is a bigwig at VH1, the cable channel whose “Behind the Music” series has become the equivalent of a post-grad course for the MTV generation. His debut novel, which could be subtitled “Behind the Music Industry,” offers up a ratings-friendly, broadly farcical and yet surprisingly earnest sendup of corporate conniving inside the Death Star-like headquarters of WorldWide Records, a music conglomerate that bears a striking resemblance to the industry’s real-life behemoths.

Into this den of soullessness tiptoes Flanagan’s 30-year-old hero, Jim Cantone, who, after racking up some cred at a smaller label, is now ready to cash it in and join the big leagues, taking a lucrative post in WorldWide’s A&R; department. (He has a wife and kids, after all.)

Cantone is badass enough to play the game, yet bighearted enough not to sacrifice his soul to it. But even this eyes-wide-open kid is shocked to discover how the high-stakes crapshoot of making unknown singers into either zillionaires or paupers tends to leave a scary number of losers in its wake, from Lilith Tour wannabes to legendary industry execs like WorldWide founder Wild Bill DeGaul. Although Cantone comes across more like a boomer raised on CSNY than an Xer raised on, say, Devo, Flanagan has a sharp ear for the distressing state of corporate rock: “Rock and roll had once seemed like an alternative world, where the freaks got to be cool and the cheerleaders were the weirdos.” Alas, no more.