Books: Pyramid for a Cold Fish

FROM THE TERRACE (897 pp.)—John O'Hara—Random House ($6.95).

John O'Hara is perhaps the U.S.'s chief social embalmer of manners and morals among the moneyed. His latest novel is a massive pyramid of prose raised over the mummified form of a minor Pharoah of finance named Alfred Eaton. As if by ancient Egyptian custom, Eaton's living tomb is stocked with the appurtenances of his caste and class: tennis rackets, the entrance requirements for Princeton in 1915, a Marmon runabout, a roster of exclusive clubs, a Navy lieutenant's stripes, partnership in a Wall Street banking house,...

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