Micheline Aharonian Marcom

On an evening six years ago in the exclusive Bay Area hamlet of Tiburon, Micheline Aharonian Marcom was having dinner with her husband, David, and two of his close friends from Istanbul. They were having a lovely time at Guaymas restaurant--good food and conversation and plenty of laughter. Then Marcom, who is half Armenian, brought up the Armenian genocide. A chill rushed over their table like a biting wind coming off the San Francisco Bay.

IT's unsurprising that Micheline Aharonian Marcom, whose first two novels, "Three Apples Fell From Heaven" and "The Daydreaming Boy," explore the massacre of Armenians nearly a century ago, has turned her attention to Guatemala. She is among a growing number of contemporary novelists writing about the inhumane landscape of genocide.

In a surge of critical severity at the start of his career, Angus Wilson told a BBC radio audience that the purpose of "The Novel" was to account for the presence of evil in the world. Even then, I suspect, few listeners paused at the kitchen sink, squeezing out the last of the green Fairy Liquid, to murmur their assent, but 50 years on, it's obvious that we expect much, much less from the genre.

"The man who has no mother's form to form him is a sad man, unanchored man, vile and demoniac," confides Vahe Tcheubjian, narrator of Micheline Aharonian Marcom's beautiful and disturbing second novel, "The Daydreaming Boy," which details in stark terms the psychic aftermath of the Armenian genocide.

IT's unsurprising that Micheline Aharonian Marcom, whose first two novels, "Three Apples Fell From Heaven" and "The Daydreaming Boy," explore the massacre of Armenians nearly a century ago, has turned her attention to Guatemala. She is among a growing number of contemporary novelists writing about the inhumane landscape of genocide.

"The man who has no mother's form to form him is a sad man, unanchored man, vile and demoniac," confides Vahe Tcheubjian, narrator of Micheline Aharonian Marcom's beautiful and disturbing second novel, "The Daydreaming Boy," which details in stark terms the psychic aftermath of the Armenian genocide.

Not to throw cold water on a celebration of authors -- including Mitch Albom, Alice Walker and Dave Eggers -- but novelist Russell Banks intends to give voice to the silenced writer at this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

* PAPERBACKS *--* Southern California Rating FICTION Last Week Weeks on List *--* *--* 1 ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $26) A 1 6 haunting novel of guilt and redemption that follows several lives through the chaos of England in World War II 2 THE NANNY DIARIES by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus 2 7 (St. Martin's: $24.95) The travails of an overworked and underappreciated Park Avenue caregiver 3 THE SUMMONS by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.

Sandra Dijkstra, founder of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency in Del Mar, may be the West Coast's most powerful literary agent. She has propelled unknown authors to the top of bestseller lists, and transformed Amy Tan and Susan Faludi into household names. As testimony to that clout, her office is aflutter with papers--publishing contracts, file folders and notes of things to be done. Books line the walls as do multitudinous works of art. Stacks of manuscripts lie on the floor.

Birds Without Wings A Novel Louis de Bernieres Alfred A. Knopf: 560 pp., $25.95 Louis de Bernieres is an angry man, and the destructive manifestations of nationalism, above all in pointless warfare, make him seethe with fury and contempt. Only those with the strongest of stomachs will be able to read his horrifyingly brilliant account of trench warfare during the Gallipoli campaign without flinching: All five senses are exploited to the fullest.

On an evening six years ago in the exclusive Bay Area hamlet of Tiburon, Micheline Aharonian Marcom was having dinner with her husband, David, and two of his close friends from Istanbul. They were having a lovely time at Guaymas restaurant--good food and conversation and plenty of laughter. Then Marcom, who is half Armenian, brought up the Armenian genocide. A chill rushed over their table like a biting wind coming off the San Francisco Bay.

In a surge of critical severity at the start of his career, Angus Wilson told a BBC radio audience that the purpose of "The Novel" was to account for the presence of evil in the world. Even then, I suspect, few listeners paused at the kitchen sink, squeezing out the last of the green Fairy Liquid, to murmur their assent, but 50 years on, it's obvious that we expect much, much less from the genre.