Books: Voyage That Never Ended

HEAR US O LORD FROM HEAVEN THY DWELLING PLACE (283 pp.)—Malcolm Lowry—Lippincott ($4.95).

The late Malcolm Lowry was the Dylan Thomas of modern fiction. Like Thomas, he was a hypnotic user and abuser of language. Like Thomas, the author of Under the Volcano erupted in lava flows of talk and lapsed into broody silences. Like Thomas, Lowry was a compulsively heavy drinker. At 47, he died an alcoholic's dreadful death: lying on his back in a drunken stupor, he began to vomit and choked to death. Finally, like Thomas, he spawned the kind of...