THE PLEDGE.(Review)(Brief Article)

Rob Kean. Delacorte, $24.95 (5l4p) ISBN 0-446-52497-2

First novelist Kean's overlong tale of a pervasive, sinister college fraternity fails to thrill, and offers few other virtues. When freshman pledge Chad Ewing is found bloodied and dying after a hazing party for Sigma, the most prestigious frat on the campus of Maine's Simsbury College, scandal threatens the unsullied reputation of the elite school. Kean's hero, Mark Jessy--a Simsbury senior, a former Sigma, a Native American and an allAmerican lacrosse star--lives under a cloud: accused of date rape two years before, Mark had escaped expulsion, but was forced to disaffiliate from his fraternity. Moreover (in a …