Two years ago, I was giddily anticipating motherhood. Yet when my son burst into a fluorescent world, wailing, I sank into darkness. I saw the baby as an intruder, kidnapper of my husband, spoiler of my wonderfully uncluttered life. Dutifully I ooh 'd and aah 'd, breast-fed around the clock and relied on my sturdy British insides to "get on with it." Desperate as I felt, mine was just a bad case of "the baby blues." Six weeks later, the alchemy of hormones undid its spell and I was released.

Julie Davis, the "tallishy attractive" protagonist in Amy Koppelman's exquisitely dark debut novel, isn't so lucky. We meet her on the eve of her son's first birthday and a few weeks after a wrist-slitting suicide attempt, referred to only as the "accident." Diagnosed with chronic postpartum depression, she's on the anti-depressant Zoloft, which allows her to exist, at least in a robotic, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other sense. Her husband, Ethan, is hopelessly supportive, believing that "faith alone is enough to make anything happen." Since the accident, a live-in Filipina nanny has been installed at their Upper West Side apartment to keep one eye on the baby and both eyes on Julie, her real charge.

A meek mother is hateful and irritating, and at first I was mad at Amy Koppelman for creating a woman so helpless and inept. Julie's anguish is described as: "Not, oh I'm so depressed I can't get those shoes in my size depressed, but depressed depressed." Fine, but where's her chutzpah, birthright of every nice Jewish girl from New York? I wanted her to muster some gumption at least for the sake of her child. Or just to tell the often-patronizing Ethan to go fuck himself. It wasn't Zoloft she needed, it was spunk. Then I realized my fury was precisely why this book was written: that society's ideals for new mothers don't allow for depression. "Motherhood equals bliss," we're told with geese-fly-south certainty. Yet the truth can be so stark, such a shift from that ideal, that women are often paralyzed, caught between what's expected and a far more complex reality. Still, I had sailed out of the fog, and I needed Julie Davis to do so, too. "Postpartum" was a media buzzword uttered alongside Andrea Yates and all the other drowning, smothering, heinous moms. How little I knew about the struggle of women who, unlike me, remain in bleak-mother country, held hostage by this frightening disease.

Ms. Koppelman's prose is minimalist and poetic. It's so pared-down it takes on a brittle quality, much like Julie's condition. The sentences are simple: "She turns off her light and returns to their bed. In another fifteen minutes she will wake the little boy for his day. Get him dressed. Fix him breakfast. Drive him to play group. Throughout each of these tasks she smiles, pretending that she's okay. That it's easy for her to beat the eggs, to buckle him into his car seat, to begin." This is an empty-eyed woman going through the motions, unable to chit-chat, struggling to find normality. The use of the third person is powerful: It distances the protagonist from the story, the way Julie is detached from herself. Her comings and goings are reported, listed and itemized, leaving the reader to play shrink at the end of each spare sentence.

A subplot involving incest is sketchy. Here, I found the author's sparse style irritating: Less wasn't more, it was merely too little. The account of the crime in question isn't clear at all, and it's too ugly a can of worms to open and leave lying around. Luckily, the psychological damage inflicted on Julie is apparent, and Ms. Koppelman deftly weaves in another of society's taboo topics-the never-ending cycle of abuse. She presents three generations of damage, soon to be four. Not that Julie's love for her son is ever in question, but any child exposed to such high doses of hopelessness is likely to go straight from crib to couch.

The story gets darker still when Julie discovers that she's pregnant again and must stop popping her tiny blue pills. As if that's not enough, Ethan decides a relocation to Long Island is in order, and soon Julie must attend Tupperware parties (in the year 2000!) hosted by the Gucci brigade. Even the most hormonally balanced Manhattanite isn't likely to survive that.

A Mouthful of Air is a satisfying antidote to the now-hackneyed Mothers Struggling and Juggling Babies and Hedge Funds story line. Julie Davis belongs to a fresh breed of fem-lit characters: Moms Who Just Can't Cope. (It's a new trend: first The Hours , and now an upcoming film starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath, suicidal poet and mother of two.) Let's hope all this mainstreaming of postpartum will help demystify the illness and de-demonize the women who suffer from it.

Amy Koppelman, a 33-year-old mother of two, deserves praise for plunging heart-first into deep waters -and for bravely refusing to redeem Julie Davis. This is a story so convincing that never again will you pass a new mother on the street without wondering what's behind her mouthful of smiles.

Judy D'Mello is a freelance writer in Manhattan

Get out your paddles, ladies! The personal effects of the late Carrie Donovan ( New York Times fashion journalist turned Old Navy spokeswoman who was, by all accounts, just a big old hoot ) go on the block today at the scandal-free William Doyle Galleries. "As Karl Lagerfeld said, she was 100 percent fashion," said Doyle couture director Linda Donahue. "As a dynamic personality, she had personal taste which is very dynamic. Very big pearl bracelets- just colossal bracelets - big pearl necklaces, fantastically large decorative glasses." One chunky faux-pearl Chanel cuff is expected to go for $500 (with which one could buy enough Old Navy "board shorts" to outfit a small nation) …. Later, in Chelsea, more girls in pearls as Stephen Webster -the lucky fellow commissioned to design Madonna and Guy Ritchie's wedding rings ( big confidentiality agreement , but we hear hers was a simple platinum band, his has fey carving )-throws an ominous-sounding "Black Widow" party to celebrate his new Tahitian pearl collection, which costs $3,000 to $34,000 per piece. Expected are Michael Stipe (R.E.M. front man), pop star Pink (Gen Y Cyndi Lauper) and Gretchen Mol (starlet perhaps best known for appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair a couple years ago with her nipples showing). Hey, you can't brush up against super-fancy A-list celebrities every night, O.K.? But no worries if you're a bit short this month; you can just stroll the avenue and say, " Hello, sailor!" Yes-it's Fleet Week!

[Carrie Donovan auction, Doyle New York, 175 East 87th Street, 10 a.m., 427-4141, ext. 208; Black Widow party, Glass, 287 10th Avenue, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 646-497-0499.]

Thursday 23rd

Men writing about themselves in a self-conscious, self-congratulatory way seems so late-1990's , and yet the trend persists: Author Rick Moody faces down the ice storm of chilly reviews for his mental-illnessmemoir The BlackVeil:A Memoirwith Digressions , and reads and signs copiesofthe booktodayat the Union Square Barnes & Noble …. Meanwhile, atthe rival, "funkier" Barnes &

Noble in Astor Place, a nice bald guy from Seattle named David Shields - Brown grad who's done his time at Yaddo and Breadloaf and written for The New York Times Magazine , Harper's , McSweeney's , Salon , The Village Voice , Utne Reader , Vogue and Details -reads from what his publicity materials call a blend of "memoir, correspondence, dream, portraiture, literary criticism and cultural criticism" titled Enough About You . Bonus alarming dirty

excerpt from page 45: "She was on top of me, rotating her hips and

crying …. " Hop off, sister! Stay home and read MaryWellsLawrence 's sparkling memoir of her career in

advertising, A Big Life , instead.

[Rick Moody, 33 East 17th Street, 7 p.m., 253-0810; David Shields, 4 Astor Place, 7:30 p.m., 420-1322.]

Friday 24th

You thought Tribeca was the only neighborhood with problems? A kind of low-key, less-buffed version of the recent, much-ballyhooed Tribeca Film Festival begins today downtown-it's the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, with octogenarian and stick man Tony Randall in the Robert De Niro role, and Al (Grandpa) Lewis as Martin Scorsese. Brace for wall-to-wall performance artists (Brown '90) waving sex toys and

pot-smoking experimental poets gorging on pierogi …. Meanwhile, in

the meatpacking district , there's a launch party for some mysterious and indecipherable entity called Sepp , which looks to be a magazine about football and fashion. (Where's Roland Barthes when you need him?) And out in the faraway land of Bridgehampton , the summer season opens with a big vr-room! at the Hamptons Auto Classic, which we gather is sort of a high-rent Daytona with MG's, Duesenbergs, Mercedes-Benzes, Mustangs, Jaguars and Ferraris for those of us, like Jerry Seinfeld , who enjoy such luxuries. (Mr. Seinfeld and his quiet wife Jessica are expected to roll into this thing later in the weekend for a breast-cancer benefit , along with oodles of Baldwin brothers and their ice-cream truck .) Yes, summer is almost here! By the way, does anyone remember when precisely it was that the women of New York collectively, unconsciously, decided to go naked till Labor Day ?

[Theater for the New City, First Avenue and East 10th Street, 6 p.m., 924-0496; Sepp launch party, 410 West 14th Street,

9 p.m., by invitation only, 560-7491; Hamptons Auto Classic, Sayre Park, Bridgehampton, gates open at 10 a.m., cocktail reception at 6 p.m., 631-537-1868.]

Saturday 25th

Hobgoblin of little minds? Umm … one might call it excessively quiet in Manhattan today, as the city's contingent of blow-dried blondes zip up their handkerchief-hemmed slip dresses and descend in droves on those fabled Hamptons, where they'll shop and eat in bungalow versions of the same stores and restaurants you can find in the city …. Brooklyn and Queens ain't exactly "happening" aujourd'hui , either …. No, if you really want to celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson's birthday today , you're going to have to hop on the ferry for a free kite workshop at the Staten Island Children's Museum. Up, up and away!

[1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 p.m., 718-273-2060.]

Sunday 26th

Get out the Imitrex! Yesterday was National Tap Dance Day! Tonight in midtown, your old friend Savion Glover hosts a big tap-stravaganza dedicated to the late Buster Brown. Clap your hands as this nice lady, Jane Goldberg , picks up the "Flo-bert Award" for advancing the art of tap. "I wanted to dance with someone like Fred Astaire," said Ms. Goldberg, a limber 54, who used to be an antiwar activist and journalist ( hmmm ) until a fateful viewing of the movie Carefree with Mr. Astaire and Ginger Rogers. "My parents were not into my tapping, but I'm a good believer that people are closet hoofers and they always want to tap. It's good for keeping in shape, it's very aerobic-the gyms should discover it."

[Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, 7 p.m., 307-4100.]

Monday 27th

Memorial Day? It's weird: We thought there always was a Memorial Day parade down Fifth Avenue, and this year especially we thought there would be a parade down Fifth Avenue, but we just called the Mayor's office and were put on hold for about five years, and then the woman came back and said, "There isn't one." So if you don't have a barbecue or a sale to go to, you're left with whatever the horny-turned-suddenly-reverent sailors over at Fleet Week come up with.

[Intrepid, Pier 86, 12th Avenue and 46th Street, 11 a.m., 245-0072.]

Tuesday 28th

From Kissing Jessica Stein , let's proceed directly to Amy's Orgasm , a low-budget ($500,000) movie written, directed, produced by and starring Studio City, Calif., resident Julie Davis. It's the story of a 29-year-old self-help author who advises women to stay single and then (surprise!) finds love-and no, New York magazine sex writer Amy Sohn was not a consultant on the production. "The original title was Why Love Doesn't Work ," said Ms. Davis, 33, who got married and produced a tot named Holden during the making of the movie, "but I was talking to Sam Goldwyn and he said, 'You know, the title of it is really awful,' and then he just said the word ' orgasm '!" Yikes! What was it like to direct herself? "It was like major multi-tasking. It was kind of really hard; I definitely think some of the directing suffered because I was so insecure about my performance." Well, buck up, honey-it's your East Coast premiere tonight, and we're with you!

[Makor, 35 West 67th Street, 7:30 p.m., 601-1000.]

Wednesday 29th

Meera, Meera on the wall! Babe authoress Meera Nair celebrates her thoughtful debut short-story collection, Video , at the Half King, that pub owned by sweaty (and secretly sort of short) adventure writer Sebastian Junger …. And since it's been sort of a saucy week, why don't we close out with one final dirty excerpt: "He leaned far over her head and tried to direct his-" Slam!

[505 West 23rd Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 462-4300.]