Keel Kissing Bottom (Random House, 252 pages, $27.95 cloth), by Elizabeth de Freitas, is a quirky, surreal, selfconscious work, redeemed only by the author's talent with language. First, the preposterous story line: Mary Seeburth, whose most notable feature is her extravagantly oversized bottom, grows up in Nova Scotia with big dreams: she wants to go to Bay Street, right to the heart of the financial district. Her father is an oceanographer wannabe, "a shy spineless man"; her mother is pathologically obsessed with disasters, collects pictures of them, tapes them on her fridge door.

After her father, Mary decides to make her dream come true. She gets on the family horse and rides it across the country to Toronto, right up Bay Street. She ends up at the Stock Exchange, an establishment out of which she is summarily jeered by the incredulous traders. She then proceeds to Parkdale in pursuit of her cousin Sarah, who moved there from the East Coast the year before. While on the subway (she's parked the horse), she meets the wealthy and eccentric Henry Gates and succeeds in becoming his unlikely love interest.

The book has its moments of cleverness, but it is, ultimately, empty. The author takes us on a ride, but we are left wondering: for what purpose?