NEW FICTION

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 5

NEW FICTION

The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. By Sloan Wilson. Cassell. 304 pp.

This fine novel is a most satisfactory evocation of a -man’s struggle with himself during transition from warfijne fife as a soldier to peace-time • j,, 35 , 3 civilian. Tom Rath is a middle-class American who suffered the common experience of having his life uprooted by the call to serve. The novel opens some years after the war with Tom and his wife Betsy (with three children) living comfortably, but restless with desire to improve their lot. Tom has the opportunity to transfer from a prosaic job to service with a fabulous tycoon. The transfer brings Tom into conflict with his own nature; he finds Tom Rath a person inhibited by appraisal of his limitations, and one unable to avoid a cynical outlook on everyday values. Yet if his family is to prosper, Tom must come to terms with himself. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that if Tom is to do this he must reconcile his war-time life—particularly one episode in it—with his present and future. The two cannot be kept in separate compartments. The door between is ajar; draughts from the one will always disturb the other. Sloan Wilson tells Tom’s story convincingly movingly, and always with restraint—whether dealing with Tom’s present life, or with his war-time life in a series of “flash-backs.” By contrast with the “everyman” type of character, Tom, and his “everywoman” wife, Betsy, Sloan Wilson creates several sharply individual characters, each one with a notable part to play in Tom’s adjustment. The tycoon is a memorable creation, and a revelation of what it is that makes a really big businessman tick; Tom’s old grandmother and her retainer show the foolishness and viciousness that age can bring; an old Jewish lawyer brings in the warmth of human nature; and the liftman who actively connects Tom’s past life with his present is fitted in unobtrusively but firmly as a sort of Nemesis which must be placated if Tom is to find peace of mind. This very good novel has achieved a big success in the United States. It deserves to do so elsewhere, not merely for its intrinsic value as a story filled with characters who arouse understanding and sympathy, but because it is an unglamourised story of decent American people leading decent lives. Tender Victory. By Taylor Caldwell. Collins. 512 pp. This is the story of the experiences of a young Presbyterian minister, Johnny Fletcher, who came from Europe bringing with him a miscellaneous collection of five rowdy, unwanted orphans, “human flotsam salvaged from war-scarred Europe,” and of his experiences in a small mining town in Pennsylvania in trying to make a home for them. Completely lacking in understanding and sympathy, the townsfolk simply refuse to accept the new parson and his strange circus, and set about persecuting the whole family. John Fletcher, however, is an idealist who has founded his life on the New Testament commandments. The onslaughts of malicious

and stupid people, the temptations of security and respectability—all these find him resolute and unafraid. After many moving and poignant experiences, he finally succeeds in making a home and in being a real father to nis foster children, and in fitting them to take their place in American society. This book describes the manner of his tender victory. Described by the London “Sphere” as the American Daphne du Maurier, Janet Taylor Caldwell has now published well over a dozen novels, and though she writes forcefully and well and has undoubted ability in the art of characterisation, this her latest book cannot be recommended unreservedly. Not only is the book itself too long with too much detail in it, her cruel portrait ofr the average modern American citizen as narrow-minded, bigoted, and bitter is so obviously caricature as to prevent the reader from forgetting that this is merely fiction. Moreover, there are too many asides, from verbatim accounts of Fletcher’s sermons to dissertations on the evils of smog.