◆ SpookStack

26 story treats an. extremely individual instance, the volurne documents a place and a time. It is a world of disintegrating loy- alties and values. One extteme is ex- pressed by the obsessively nostalgic Uncle Jake. (in “The Scoutmaster”) “saying that it was our great mis- fortune to have been born in these latter days when the morals and man- ners of the country had been cor- rupted.” Corrupted, of course, because of “our failure to heed the teachings and ways of our forefathers.” At the other end of the scale is Josie (‘The Fancy Woman”), who recognized the possibility of exploiting the world of money and leisure, but failed because “she'd néver miadé’ a “good ‘thitig of" people.” Her precarious situation be- . tween two worlds is expressed m her tueful_ self-consolation: stars you're white.” A more complex example is the little girl (of “A Spinster’s Tale’) who grows up, among father, brother and uncles, in the male world of privi- “Thank your lege and dissipation. When she deals a successful blow at their common “brutality,” she is “frightened by the thought of the cruelty which I found I was capable of, a cruelty which seemed inextricably mixed with what I had called courage.” Though naturally uneven, since they - have been written over the first ten years of the writer's career, these — stories are unusually fine. They include a variety of character and incident in a unity of well rendered background. In the prevailing tone of the stories, there is something of the nostalgia, something of the precarioustiess, and something of the cruelty that I have indicated—what Taylor refets. to in - one place as “the inconsolable desola- tion of childhood,’ ” “problem.” In The Wall of Dust ‘ the stories are not, as above, of 'a par- ticular milieu, but display a unity of theme: -the disparity between intellec- tual and emotional conviction; or the embarrassed malaise of the character who finds himsélf incapable of a full human ‘response to what he had taken as his ideals. At the end of a victorious “war for humanity,” a soldier dis- ‘seldom intrigued. NEW REPUBLIC covers that he has not only “lost faith in his own life. He had lost it in the whole future of humankind.” The problem occurs in a different way to an Italian American soldier who visits, for the first time, his family in Italy, © and to an ardent English Zionist on — a trip to Palestine. The stories are told in a spirit of intelligent discussion. Perplexity is the dominant tone. The problem is frankly » stated, the elements of it displayed, and some solution is worried out. The author has an excellent sense of place for his locales in Italy, Palestine and North Africa. But he tells us too liter- ally what he’s about: the “problem” is too intellectual, and the characters have -the story too well in hand, like a com>” petent committee. We are attentive, but, JOHN FARRELLY | CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Explosion, by Dorothy Cameron Disney (Random; $2.50). Miss Eliza- beth Mitchell, an admirable, sharp- eyed, elderly spinster, is devoted to the Greets, her next-door Washington ’ neighbors. When, on a hot July after- noon, the Greers’ house is suddenly blown to bits, Miss Mitchell finds her- self thoroughly embroiled in the in- vestigation that unearths a highly com- plicated—and nasty—state of affairs. Chatty as all get-out, but a skillful puzzler. Drink the Green Water, by Hugh Austin (Scribner; $2.50), precipitates Wa. Sultan, only member extant of the famous law firm of Sultan, Sultan & Sultan, smack into the end results of murder that happened in the 1890's. His beauteous secretary, file clerk and receptionist provide some hearty laughs while goosing their stuffy young master toward a solution. Marder Miscellany. - Make My Bed Soon, by John Stephen Strange (Crime Club; $2), is a wéll written and. ab- sorbing account of a series of baffling tourders in Pennsylvania's hitherto peaceful Bucks County. No Tears for the Dead, by Rae Foley (Dodd, Mead; $2.50), a promising first novel of family feuds and sudden death, is marred by an unlikely solution. 5. H. ~~ ISON EPI ee eae