SAILING <i> by Susan Kenney (Viking: $18.95; 318 pp.) </i>

This novel about a husband’s potentially fatal illness is a tour de force by an extravagantly gifted writer who hasn’t the luxury of plucking an appealing plot off the shelf.--Elaine Kendall

POSTCARDS FROM THE END OF THE WORLD by Larry Wolff (Atheneum: $18.95; 288 pp.) In light of the massive social and psychic changes taking place in fin - de - siecle Vienna, Freud’s ideas can be seen as the banal speculations of a cocaine addict, rooted in a masculine romantic tradition.

--Michael Moorcock