Books: Sketch

BLACK CABIN—Green Peyton—Little, Brown ($2).

Julian was only 18 but he was “kind of tired.” Living on his queer uncle’s som-nolescent farm outside of Charlottesville, Va. suited him, but attending lectures at the University was a reccurrent chore that got increasingly hard to do. There were other, more important complications. First was Marty, who had loved Julian for a long time but not quite enough to let him seduce her. It was on a weekend at her aristocratically shabby farm that Julian met complication No. 2. Ann was Marty’s cousin, but prettier and much bolder. She liked Julian right away, never bothered her unscrupulous head about whether she ought to invite him into her bedroom. Marty found out about their carryings-on and went wild, but Julian hardly cared. About the time he was fired from college Ann wrote him she was going to have a baby (an exaggeration). Julian immediately married her. Ann’s parents, not sharing her enthusiasm for Julian, arranged a job for him in Manhattan and kept Ann in Richmond. They were right: he failed to reappear. Months later he showed up again, the worse for wear, at Marty’s farm, where she and Ann had just been reconciled. Both of them had sense enough to send philandering Julian on his way.

This sketch for a real live novel has all the earmarks of a well-written, readable book, but it adds up to nothing much. Most novelists jump the gun, make at least one false start. Black Cabin indicates that Author Green Peyton (Wertenbaker) may have a stride worth hitting.