Books: Culture Pearl

ALONG THESE STREETS—Struthers Burf —Scribner ($2.75).

Maxwell Struthers Burt of Philadelphia and Wyoming knows how to write an almost convincing simulacrum of a first-class novel. Self-assured but not glib, he respects and admires the English language, has a plentiful supply of ideas, puts enough complexity and contradiction into his characters to keep them from being stereotypes. It is like the creation of a culture pearl: an irritant is carefully introduced into the oyster, which then obediently builds up a globe of pearly substance, as smooth and gleaming to the casual glance as the real thing.

Hero of Along These Streets is Felix Bartain...