This intelligent new novel by well known author C.W. 
Smith examines the process by which a decent and well-
meaning young woman makes a moral error with tragic 
consequences.
   

Twenty-six year old Susan is the kind of teacher every 
student falls for, in one way or another. She's beautiful, 
kind, sympathetic - a pal. And she teaches art, where her 
creative approach and candor have endeared her to all. Her 
personal life is something else, however, as her biological 
clock ticks on and boyfriend Curt shows no signs of wanting 
marriage, and even less of wanting kids.
   

When seventeen-year-old transfer student, Jeff Robbins walks 
into her art club meeting one night, Susan is transfixed by 
his good looks, palpable shyness and obvious admiration.
    

The story that results displays C.W. Smith's exceptional 
sense of detail in the service of character as he reveals 
every nuance of their developing relationship and the 
mistakes that propel it.
    

As he has demonstrated in his previous fiction, Smith 
profoundly understands the pressures at work as adolescent 
males attempt to comprehend themselves and the world. Never 
has he created a more sympathetic young man than Jeff, deeply 
infatuated, forced by circumstance into a nurturing role at 
home, disturbingly at risk from the intensity of his emotions. 
What may be more surprising, however, is Smith's stunning 
ability to inhabit the skin of Susan, a young woman whose lack 
of a moral compass combined with good intentions sets off 
a chain of events whose conclusion even she cannot foresee.

   
Interwoven throughout the story is the image of The 
Annunciation, the subject of Susan's long overdue art history 
thesis, as she attempts to use it to reveal the many disguises 
we apply to the power of sexual passion.
   

Beautifully written, with Smith's usual sharp ear for the fine 
points of colloquial usage, Gabriel's Eye is a compelling 
read that will deeply reward every reader with an appetite for 
thoughtful, moving fiction.


_________________________________________________________

C. W. SMITH is Professor of English at Southern Methodist 
University and the author of six novels, including most 
recently Understanding Women. His short stories have 
appeared in Mademoiselle, Vision, Southwest Review, 
Sunstone Review, Carolina Quarterly, Quartet, Cimarron 
Review, American Literary Review, American Short Fiction, 
The Missouri Review and other magazines. A collection 
of stories, Letters From the Horse Latitudes, was 
published in 1994.
   
His autobiographical book dealing with children after a 
divorce, originally published in hardcover by Putnam was 
reprinted in paper by Berkley in 1989 under the author's 
original title: Uncle Dad.


Among his numerous awards, Smith has twice received the 
Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Novel from the Texas Institute 
of Letters; the Southwestern Library Association Award for 
Best Novel; the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship from the University 
of Texas; two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships; 
the Texas Headliner's Feature Story award; the Frank O'Connor 
Memorial Short Story Award from Quartet magazine; the 
John H. McGinnis Short Story Award from Southwest Review; 
and the Stanley Walker Award for Journalism from the Texas 
Institute of Letters. He is married and lives in Dallas.