Books: Cocktail Tidbit

HIS OWN MAN (192 pp.)—Mariha Gellhorn—Simon & Schusfer ($3.75).

This is more than a juicy bit of gossip but less than a juicy novel. The story is patterned on real people—to the limited extent that the inhabitants of the London-Paris international sets can be said to be real—and as such, they will be clearly recognizable to at least 247 readers. To outsiders, they will seem moderately entertaining if curiously incomplete. The leading character, Ben Eckhardt, might be described as a Foundation remittance man who lives meagerly but independently in Paris as a perennial student. While he starts out like one of Henry...