More time to mope about Sarah. Eventually, in search of a plot, the story wanders as far afield as San Diego and Kansas City, but Wilson's narrative never settles on a satisfying trajectory. When a cast of thousands and side trips to America fail, it's time for another terrorist blast. But even the ominous threat of sudden violence can't create much tension if the reader doesn't care about the characters. Before ''Eureka Street'' draws to a conclusion, quite a few people have died grisly deaths in bombings and many inexplicable things have happened.
Cities are the meeting places of stories.
And sometimes, late at night, when most sleep . . . It seems to exhale that narrative, to give it off like the stored ground-heat of a summer day. . . . Sarah Ferguson is a writer and critic who lives in Brooklyn.