Books: Course Without Compass

THE HOLLOW OF THE WAVE (318 pp.) —Edward Newhouse—Sloane ($3.50).

In the depression '30s, Hungary-born Edward Newhouse wrote a leftish novel, You Can't Sleep Here, that led one critic to hail him as "the proletarian Hemingway." Two years later, his story of a Communist organizer (This Is Your Day) further established his skill—and his slant. He had been a contributor to the New Masses, but while his left hand was busy with ideological chores, his right was making a reputation for him with short stories in The New Yorker.

In his new novel, The Hollow...