About half of this volume is devoted to Ian Hamilton's piece about Paul Gascoigne, a British soccer star known to fans and tabloids as ``Gazza,'' and may frustrate those who find the soccer world alien. Hamilton suggests an obsessive fan must be ``part yob, part connoisseur''; however, his energetic catalogue of Gazza's travels and travails lacks sufficient cross-cultural insight for an American audience. More rewarding is Jonathan Raban's deft, ironic travelogue through the Mississippi floods this year; Raban plumbs the interaction between the story-hungry media and the often savvy locals. Other articles belong to the first of a four-part series called ``After the Revolution.'' Timothy Garton Ash provides a brief but penetrating sketch of a prison visit with Erich Honecker, the defensive ex-leader of East Germany. Michael Ignatieff travels to the former Yugoslavia and wonders resonantly about the West's naive assumptions concerning the fall of communism. The issue also includes two pieces of fiction: Ethan Canin's sensitive tale of a family in flux, circa 1973, and Nick Hornby's account of long-lasting adolescent angst over girls. Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.)
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