THIRTY YEARS, by John Marquand (466 pp.; Little, Brown; $5). The plot line of this three-decade collection of short stories (plus a few nonfiction pieces of reminiscence) is familiar: boy meets code, boy breaks code, code breaks boy. The codes are Boston and family, club and army. After a bout of spiritual beachcombing, the slightly disenchanted heroes generally return to pukka grace. Boston is the city Marquand almost hates to love, but love it he must—though he is not above shaking his own family tree for laughs. Most of the fiction was written for...
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