John Irving's latest novel is not bathtub reading in any sense of the phrase.

		"UNTIL I FIND YOU" By John Irving Random House ($27.95)

The book, at 820 pages, is simply too heavy to hold up out of the suds. Its subject matter is heavy as well, somehow both bland and bawdy, and its rather sordid telling of a sensitive subject will only leave you feeling dirty, no matter how long you soak.

Our protagonist is Jack Burns, a wee lad of 4, described as breathtakingly pretty, undersized and skinny, but displaying the prodigious memory of a much older boy.

It is through his eyes, his filtration of events, that our book opens -- a rather key point. His grandfather was a famous tattoo artist, as is his mother.

Daughter Alice, as she is known in the insular world of tattoo parlors, is dragging young Jack through the ports of Europe in hopes of tracking down Jack's dad, a tattoo "addict" and choral organist who abandoned the pair.

These circumstances are a bewildering way to start; the reader is asked to care about Alice and Jack's quest without knowing much about them or the deadbeat dad.

Instead, we meet an enormous cast of colorful, indistinguishable characters, which is of course, Irving's stock in trade: tattoo artists, tattoo addicts with "full body" coverings, choral musicians, ministers and friendly prostitutes -- in Irving's world, a freak in every port, indeed.

The story soon establishes quickly, queerly and horrifyingly, that the ladies can't keep their hands off pretty young Jack. The 4-year-old has women stroking his belly and other body parts at every turn.

After Alice abandons her quest and returns home to Canada, the casually told tales of molestation get much, much worse. In particular there's Emma, who despite her cruel nature becomes Jack's closest friend and protector -- her idea being that no one's going to molest Jack unless it's she, which is Irving's curious form of "protection."

Casual abuses go on, for hundreds of pages, making for nearly unbearably uncomfortable reading.

Jack's mom and Emma's mom become a couple and move in together, and Emma climbs into bed with Jack every night -- to protect him from the advances of her own mother, Leslie, by far the book's creepiest, most inexplicable character.

Actually, "inexplicable" neatly sums up the actions of all of Irving's players in this tale. We learn so little about why they do the things they do that redemption and reason never seem achievable or even a possibility.

Pretty Jack grows up into a gorgeous Jack, a famous actor who plays sexually ambiguous, cross-dressing characters in sore need of movie-screen redemption. He lives in Los Angeles with Emma, and, while the two never have sex, there's plenty of touching -- and penis-holding (an irritating theme in all of Jack's female relationships).

Jack becomes the most passive, personality-free ladies' man in existence -- he never has to pursue a woman since they're always throwing themselves at him -- which makes sense for a celebrity, if not a 4-year-old boy.

(I've rarely read so many unsexy sex scenes.)

The good writing and trademark Irving moments of absurd hilarity are so infrequent that it seems the author of the extraordinary "A Prayer for Owen Meany" has lost his magic.

Jack and his mom, so close after their European adventures, become virtual strangers. Alice is Irving's most frustrating creation to date; she changes dramatically every few hundred pages, and finally it is confirmed that we really know nothing about her. Her life has all been lies or perhaps a creative connect-the-dots summation from a 4-year-old's perspective.

Sadly, when we arrive at Jack's third act, a touching reunion, Irving adds comic relief, distracting us from what should be a tender chapter.

Irving has said that a good deal of "Until I Find You" is autobiographical. He would have done well to look to Augusten Burroughs' memoir, "Running with Scissors," which recalls a horrible childhood with well-edited prose.

There's a good 300-page book here, but what we're served is a rambling, unsatisfying story of monumental dysfunction.