Books: Who's Really Who?

CARDS OF IDENTITY (370 pp.)—Nigel Dennis—Vanguard ($3.75).

That wretched Mrs. Chirk, she had forgotten her name again! Once it had really been Finch, but after what seemed a lifetime of being miscalled "Chirk" in National Health Service waiting rooms "Chirk" stuck. Not for long, though. "Poor soul," says one character about her, "I wonder when she last knew herself." "Probably never," replies another. "One would probably have to go back to her grandfather to find an identity that really made an impression on her."

Modern mankind is Mrs. Chirk. That is the thesis which British Novelist Nigel Dennis, a contributing editor of TIME...

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