Evening star., 1948-02-01
Reviewed by
CARTER BROOKE JONES.


CARTER BROOKE JONES.
Peter, who tells this story Of the
first winter after the war, thus de-
scribes what he said to an intelli-
gent, mature woman in New York
about the boys back from the service ::
Il talked about all the thousands,
the tens of thousands, the millions
of us who had been away for a while
and had returned. Without any
bands, without any committees of
welcome, without banners. We
hadn't wanted those. We'd tried to
think we hadn't wanted anything;
yet we had, and the difficulty was
that we didn't know what we
wanted. and neither did anybody
else. That was the difficulty"
And that, vague as it is, comes as
close to expressing the baf1ed,
cropping way they took up a life
interrupted three, sometimes five
years, as anything any of them say
in this vivid novel. Mostly they say
1t with wisecracks, double talk; even
more, they express it by drinking
too much, rushing into brief liaisons
with women. jumping from job to
job. doing other things they don't
particularly want to do.
RestIessness Epitomized.
1t seems to me that Mr.. Miller
has described this restlessness, this
futile effort to pick up threads of
living too long dropped. better than
any one who has written about the
recent war. His story tumbles out
breathlessly, as If he were afraid
he'd forget 1t before he put it into
words. He never hesitates; there
are no dull gaps. Even the inevitable
f1ashbackS, when the present is ex-
planned in terms of the past, are
managed so adroitly that the narra-
tive does not seem interrupted.
Peter shares a Manhattan apart
ment that winter with Ted and Lew.
Ted, a. rich mans son, who never
do with his life, has lost an arm in
the war. Lew, who, like Ted. was
an officer, is Jewish, but weary of
anti-Semitism, he has changed his
name from Colinsky to Cole. He is
engaged to a girl who doesn't like
Jews. Peter got no higher than
technical sergeant. He gives, incl
dentally, a scorching account of
how it felt to be an enlisted man in
the Army of this democracy.
Postwar Neuroses.
Ted, suffering from a very pro-
nounced postwar neurosis, drinks
prodigiously and picks fights, futilely
begging those who anger him to hit
back. Lew goes back to his family
after his mother comes from the
West Coast to meet his fiancee, and
the girl is somewhat less than
cordial to the old woman. This un-
snarling of Lewis personality tangle
is the least plausible of the several
solutions which the book works out,
at least temporarily, for some of its
characters.
Peter has published novel which
sold 1000 copies. He has we'll
paid job on news magazine. He
hates the job. And he offers a
savage description of the SNUG at
mosphere in which the weekly's pom
tifical interpretations of events are
Matched. Peter too has a neurosis.
1t is based on the blame he attaches
to himself for the death of his best
friend in the Army during the
Battle of the Bulge. This friend
Gene Wenisloski, a boy of Polish
parentage who became a crusading
editor in Mississippi before the war,
is perhaps the best-drawn portrait
in the book.
The tone of bitterness which per-
meates This Winter" is relieved by
a sly humor. The book is written
with colloquial naturalness. 1t tells
a story that should be told.