FICTION

THE LYDIA CHRONICLES by Doris Read (E. P. Dutton: $14.95; 224 pp.). So, why not? Bored with her lot in Illinois, the sprightly widow, Lydia, 60-something, has her hair dyed blond, trades in her stodgy green Buick for a yellow two-seater sports car and heads into the sunset for romantic California and the first singles bar she can find. This is the first of 25 vignettes making up “The Lydia Chronicles,” the first full-length piece of fiction by 73-year-old Doris Read. Settling in coastal Los Barcos, Lydia does, indeed, succeed in finding a male companion--not at a singles bar but on a bird hike--and snaring him into an LTA (a Living Together Arrangement--marriage would imperil her pension). Gentle, whimsical and well written, “The Lydia Chronicles” corrects a frequently distorted image of retirement living: Liveliness, curiosity and just plain having fun, Lydia tells us, don’t have to end with that first Social Security check.