Books: A Prize Case of Angst

P. S. WILKINSON by C.D.B. Bryan. 441 pages. Harper & Row. $5.95.

Novelist Bryan, John O'Hara's stepson, was educated at Yale, served in the Army during the peacetime occupation of Korea, and after his discharge was caught in the call-up of reservists during the 1961 Berlin crisis. P. S. Wilkinson, the title character of this first novel, follows the same course. It is not good manners to inquire how much further the resemblance can be carried, because P. S. Wilkinson is tedious, self-pitying, unsufferably sensitive, and a prig. He did not enjoy his Army service in Korea. He also does not enjoy...

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