Alfred A. Knopf. They begin trivially enough, with herbs found strewn in the graveyard, candles stolen from the altar. Then an August heat wave descends in April. Stillbirths, false pregnancies and monstrous births occur among the farm animals. The crops parch, lettuce and spinach seed prematurely, peaches wizen, even the pond grasses wilt.
Marriages likewise wither and deform.
One after another the men fall into sexual malaise, and one after another their wives come to Henry Lieber, rector of the Episcopal church of St. Anthony the Hermit, for the psychotherapeutic counseling expected of a modern pastor. The narrator of Ann Arensberg's third novel, ''Incubus,'' is Henry's wife, Cora Whitman. Cora is a staunch materialist, a self-described ''Christian by marriage,'' whose relationship to the church is more culinary than spiritual. Every night brings a fresh opportunity for regression, reviving the hope that two bodies lying side by side will catch fire spontaneously. Cora takes a wry view of these proceedings, but as the sexual hunger spreads, some other bodiless force, seeking fecund life, comes to exploit or sate it.