Books: Papa Loves Mamba

MAMBA (232 pp.)—Sfuarf Cloefe—Houghfon Mifflin ($3).

Ernest Hemingway appears to have left the inedible portions of his celebrated prose style littered all over the green hills of Africa. In his latest novel, Old Africa Hand Stuart Cloete, who last year published a perceptive nonfiction account of his dark and complicated continent (TIME, Oct. 3), has taken up the clipped clarity of the Hemingway of life.

The book begins: "After it happened I stayed in the Congo for several months. This seemed the safest and wisest thing to do under the circumstances. Then I went home to England. I took with me The...