Books: Ruthless Pity

PITY OF GOD—Beulah Marie Dix—Viking ($2.50).*

It all happens in a day. Ethel Vickery starts the day as usual, right, by waking her business-wearied husband Joe with her fatuous Swedish exercises on the floor, and endless personal hygiene in the only bathroom. Rob, their spoiled schoolboy son, lolls in bed turning a hangover into a case of overwork. Rosamond dreams, as far as her knowledge will permit, of violent love at the hands of Wesley, the chauffeur. Only Isabel, the youngest, is up & about, playing in the pools that have unaccountably appeared in...