When the three witches - now old, remarried and widowed - decide to go back to Eastwick to spend a summer together, many things have changed. Darryl Van Horne is gone. Their husbands and lovers have gone. The lithe and supple bodies with which they wrecked marriages and wreaked havoc many years before have gone - and have been replaced with the quiet aches and encumbrances of age. But a chemistry still crackles between the three and magic still lingers in the Eastwick air, and soon it becomes clear that there are those around them who remember them, and wish them ill. ''The Widows of Eastwick'' takes the mischief and enchantment of ''The Witches of Eastwick'' and reshapes it in a new emotional landscape, resulting in a sensitive study of the passing of youth and a darkly funny novel that shines with luminous sexual reminiscences and satirical observations about modern America.