THIS is a small but perfectly formed little book. At just 138 sparsely covered pages, it is more a novella than a novel, but it has more plot and character development squeezed into those few short pages than most blockbusters pack into 600 or more.

Following hot on the heels of her college-days novel I'll Take You There, in which Oates took on Sylvia Plath at her own game and won, Beasts is another foray into the murky waters of American collegiate sexual politics.

And what deep, uninviting depths they are, thanks mainly to the beastly antics of charismatic professor Andre Harrow and his russet-haired bohemian wife Dorcas, who sculpts crude life-sized wooden totems with the help - both conscious and unconscious - of mesmerised college girls.

For the Harrows, size definitely matters. For Oates, it obviously doesn't. I'm with her on this one. Beasts is good. Enough said.

Updated: 08:48 Wednesday, April 09, 2003