i-! t-{d Y STICI{/FINGERS I dentitv theft is a voguish crime.</p><p> But college stu- I dents have been masters of it for years.</p><p> They I soak up the personalities of their favorite teach- I ".r und fellow students with unembarrassed de- light.</p><p> One weekthey're anarchists; the next, Ro- manticpoets.' College is the central location for the unsettling, unsatisfying new novel by Charles Baxter ('The Feast of Love")- Nathaniel Mason is torn between two women: Theresa is an insecure small-town girl who cloaks herself in intellectual irony; Jarnie is a lesbian whq Nathaniel cajoles into loving him.</p><p> Hovering is the would-be mysterious character Jerome Cootberg, who delights in bante4 wordplay and taunts - never mind if it doesn't make any sense; at least he's saying something.</p><p> Nathaniel believes Cool* berg is stealing his identitY by appropriatinghis life sto- ry and frlching every item of clothing and fumiture from his apartrnent, piece by Piece' Is Coolberg a demon suck- ing up Nathaniel's soul? Or is he just a fellow student with a crush? "The SoulThief" threatens to be darker and strangerthan itultimately turns out to be- The final twist to the tale is anticlimactic' Yes, writers are the most unrepentant soul thieves of all.</p><p> They lift details from the lives of others with light-fuigered ease, But when the story is well-told' no one notices or cares.</p><p> It's only when the theft is clumsy and the story misshapen that people can 'spot the crime.</p><p> In this case, Baxter has been caught red-handed.</p><p> Michael Giltz
