AT ADAIR’S HOUSE by Adair Lara,...

AT ADAIR’S HOUSE by Adair Lara, illustrated by Ward Schumaker (Chronicle Books: $11.95; 176 pp., paperback original). A popular columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Adair Lara eschews the effortfully self-deprecating humor of Erma Bombeck, but never pretends to be hipper than she is. She presents an honest, open picture of an intelligent woman struggling to balance the often conflicting elements of ‘90s urban life. Her reflections on work, family, a romance that leads to her second marriage and her attempts to come to terms with her eccentric, unstable father offer pleasantly diverting reading.