Evening star., 1936-01-05
Bv Mary.Carter Roberts.


lawrence. New York: Frederick A.
Stokes & Co.
THIS novel, already chosen as the
Book of the Month Club selec-
ton for January, seems likely
- to be popular. It is one Of
those books which, without being sig
nificant of anything in particular,
takes hold on the public for the rea-
son that it deals with conditions and
people which are generally familiar.
Since Miss Lawrence Cor does she pre-
fer lawrence?) does not treat these
conditions and people at all fiatter-
ingly, it is unlikely that many of us
will see ourselves in 1t. But by the
same token, most of us will assuredly
see our neighbors A better formula
for popularity could hardly be
imagined.
It tells the story-quite simply after
you get past the irritatingly cute title
of family of installment plan buy
ers. A middle-aged shipping clerk
Gone wonders why the victims picked
out by our bright young girl and boy
writer's for demonstrations OF medioc-
rity are always shipping clerks, his
wife, who clerks in a store basement;
his daughter Darthula, who is tea
room hostess; his high school son Dali
las, who plans to be "a famous law
YER" and his youngest daughter,
Sythia, who likewise plans to be "a
famous dancer"-these are the dra-
mats personae. They do not own
ANYTHING. Although their combined
salaries would enable them to live
decently and solvently. they dream
vastly beyond their incomes. The re-
suit is that they live in a perpetual
seige from collectors and carry mort
cages on everything they possess far
beyond their capacity to pay.
Miss ence-lawrence-tells her
tale by recounting the struggles Of
the individuals involved to realize
their various impossible dreams and
their ultimate failures. In so far as
she hangs this family drama on a
theme at all, she seems to be con-
cerned with demonstrating how the
national vice of snobbery has brought
about its own reward. The shipping
clerk and his wife, she tells us, were
both children of laborers. Neither of
them completed school. He, some
where in his vague experience, picked
up the idea that good citizenship"
required Of a man that he own his
own home. She, likewise vaguely,
achieved a philosophy based on the
Idea that economy consisted in having
the best Of everything.
She introduces them in the process
of buying a $4,000 house, an electric
refrigerator, an electric range, an
overstuffed living room suite, an elec.
trio mangle. car and cemetery lot.
When q kind samaritan offers them
the information that they are living
beyond their means they reply in
terms not of cash, but of principle
good citizenship, having the best and
so on.
Thus the plight of the older gen.
Grafton. The children. going their
parents one better, are set on careers.
They feel superior to laboring jobs
and also have been advised against
"blind alley" occupations. What to
do then, but become respectively, ia
NOUS lawyers" and famous dancers?"
They are as happy in their logic as
are their parents.
The best touch in the whole book
comes when calamity overtakeS them
one by one aid they are forced TO do
ie IN hor IN tHa 1~n tny
fails in his studies. tries stealing, inef-
fectually, and gives up and becomes
a chauffeur. The girl fails in her
dancing and RACES, but finally con-
sents to become beauty parlor oper-
ator Then-and this is what is really
delightful-both of them fall into the
newer noStrurl. They 90 aSsiduouSly
to labor meetings and, under the spell
OF the well-dressed organizer, ex-
change their prattle of careers for
prattle of "proletorian rights" and
contemptuous references to the "bour.
geois ideas" of their parents. Thus,
Miss Lawrence Qawrence) seems to
say, we have the cycle. From laborer
to laborer-from capitalistic model,
1880, to communist model, 1885.
Through it all runs their desperate
chatter about Glass" While they are
under the spell of the career dream
they assert blithely that there Is no
such thing; there is nothing, they say,
to prevent one from going forward
indefinitely. When, through the in
exorable processes of nature, they are
forced into their level of competence,
they become militantly class conscious,
but assert, of course, that their class
organized labor-is the only one with
any claim to right about it. One
wonders If they are greatly happier
than their grandparents. It is a nice
comment on the aims of the enemies
of capitalisnl-or on the material
with which these enemies have to
work.
Apart from this more or less i'm
piled sociological comment, the book
is little more than beating admin
istered to the helpless. As said, it
seems likely to be popular. We are
all scathless, Of course. But Just look
at the neighbors!
THE SON OF MARIETTA. BY John
Fabricius. Translated from the
Dutch by Irene Clephane and David
Hallett. Boston: Little Brown &
Co.
WE RECOMMEND this novel with
Nv out qualification. 1t is perfectly
raodo h1a