Books: Case History, No. 2

THE FALL OF VALOR (310 pp.)—Charles Jackson—Rinehart ($2.75).

Charles Jackson's first novel, The Lost Weekend, was the story of five days in the life of a lost soul, Don Birnam, a confirmed and hopeless alcoholic unable to save himself or see any way to be saved. It was a study in acknowledged disorder. The Fall of Valor, Jackson's second book, is a study in the revelation of disorder. The story follows a conventionally successful man, John Grandin, through the crucial weeks of his life, when his long-growing sense that something is wrong gives way...