Books: SONNY

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The characters of Salinger's most astonishing legend belong to a gaudy and eccentric family named Glass. The chronicle of the clan's fortunes is far from finished (the Glasses have so far made their appearance only in Franny, Zooey, and five other stories), but it is already one of the indelible family sagas to appear in the U.S. The elder Glasses are Irish-Jewish vaudevillians now retired to a life of comfortable reminiscence. Les Glass and Bessie Gallagher, professionally known as Gallagher & Glass, achieved "more than just passing notability on the old Pantages and Orpheum circuits." They are descended from "an astonishingly long and motley double-file of professional entertainers"; Les's grandfather, for instance, was "a quite famous Polish-Jewish carnival clown named Zozo, who had a penchant—right up to the end, one necessarily gathers—for diving from immense heights into small containers of water." The seven children, too, have been professionals; they were all prodigies, and they all appeared, at one time or another, on a radio kiddy-quiz called, slyly enough, It's a Wise Child.

Any author who promises board and room to seven fictional child prodigies would seem to be diving into a container of water that is very small indeed. The Glass children, moreover, are brave, clean, reverent, and overwhelmingly lovable. Yet they never become the seven deadly siblings (at least they are never all deadly at the same time). The Irish strain makes them formidably talkative and occasionally fey. The Jewish strain lends family warmth as well as a talent for Talmudic brooding. The vaudeville heritage provides theatricality.

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