THE ONE AND ONLY.(The One: Finding Soul Mate Love and Making It Last)(Book review)

The title of Kathy Freston's new book, "The One: Finding Soul Mate Love and Making It Last," speaks to the widely held aspiration that romantic love might be governed by simple formulas; but, as Freston elaborated at a book party held in her honor at the Core Club last week, relationship math is rarely that simple. "There are six billion people in the world, and I can't imagine there's only one person for each person--if something was to happen to him, we're in trouble," said Freston, who used to be a model and is now what the dust jacket of her book calls a personal-growth and spirituality counsellor.

Everyone can have more than one One, explained Freston, who is married to Tom Freston, the C.E.O. of Viacom; and while she said fondly that she had had only one One, the evidence of her One's prior One was circulating the room in the shape of Gil Freston, Tom Freston's teen-age son from his previous marriage. Barely a guest was present who did not have at least one earlier One in his or her past: Calvin Klein was there, long parted from his onetime One, Kelly Klein. Jann Wenner made an appearance, and so did his former One, Jane Wenner, though Matt Nye, his No. 1 One for the past several years, was nowhere to be seen.

One of the party's hosts, the singer and songwriter Carole Daly--who used to be known as Carole Bayer Sager before she married Burt Bacharach and, later on, Robert Daly, the former head of Warner Brothers--had had more Ones than can fit on a driver's license. "Neil Simon once said about me that Bayer Sager Bacharach Daly could have been a great law firm," she said.

Freston's book, which draws upon Buddhism, Hinduism, and the works of Marianne Williamson, calls upon readers to "move towards wholeness by regarding your partner as an extension of God"--a regard unlikely to seem inappropriate to many on the guest list. The book is peppered with case studies, such as one in which a husband humiliates his wife by telling guests that part of the Thanksgiving dinner she is serving was ordered in. (According to Freston, the way for him to make up ...