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Dillwyn Parrish, onetime soldier, droll bachelor, is brother to Anne Parrish, author of The Perennial Bachelor, which was no family portrait. Very gentle irony is one of their joint possessions; another, fondness for funny, homely words like "confab" and "scraption". Once they wrote a book together, Knee-High to a Grasshopper, peopled with frogs, bugs, hoptoads and other small creatures you find in a meadow. This is Brother Dill-wyn's first novel, joyous reading and a book of mark.
Drunks, Drinking
DRY MARTINI (A Gentleman Turns to Love)—John Thomas—Doran ($2.50). Middle-aged Willoughby Quimby belongs to that class of mankind known variously as "men of the world," "high livers," "parasites," "epicures" and "drunkards." ' He lives in Paris, where he conducts his dissipations "as the debauchery of a gentleman should be conducted." Unexpectedly the duties of fatherhood settle upon him, and it is related how Mr. Quimby strives to be an adequate parent to "eminently sex-conscious" Elizabeth, his debutante daughter, who arrives upon the Parenthetic practically unannounced. (Mrs. Quimby had been given custody of the child twelve years previous.) Other characters: Suave, philandering Conway Cross, "envied hero of many a whispered tale along Dan's brass rail"; Dan himself, "greatest barman of his day in Paris"; Frank at the Ritz and George at the Crillon; Joe Zelli, "the original one"; old Matthew Stone "who spent all afternoon getting drunk enough to speak, and all night getting drunk enough not to be able to speak"; young Ward Johnson, who came to Paris four years ago but had never been able to stay out of Dan's long enough to catch the boat home.
Strangers, at first sight of tall, blond, softly circumloquacious Author John Thomas,* have exclaimed: "What? That fellow knows his Paris? I don't believe you!" Others know better the onetime (1923-24) Book Editor of TIME.
NON-FICTION
Plato Horsed
PLATO'S AMERICAN REPUBLIC— Douglas Woodruff—Button ($1). Picture Socrates in Scranton, Xantippe at the Zenith Woman's Club, Alcibiades in Akron. Fancy Agathon asking questions about the Volstead Act, Lysis hearing that the U. S. has hundred of colleges and also Kansans who believe in an ape-shaped Devil that invented grapes.