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Here and there flashes of the old Tarkington humor light up the story. Long Harry Pelter, having salvaged a dog-eared copy of Punch from some summer cottage, was wont to while away many a winter evening puzzling over its contents. Said he: "Seems like some time, if a man studied enough, he ought to be able to make head or tail o' this little magazine." But the story as a whole is far from funny. The one character in the book which he has drawn with real bitterness is Mrs. Corning, perfect type of blind and worldly mother, made hateful by Tarkington's skillful scorn. Says one of his "summer people," reporting discovery of the strange pride of the natives, their stranger contempt for their rich visitors: "It seemed to me there was something in that point of view."
Few among this summer colony have escaped their author's brushing satire; few among the natives have gone without his accolade of final approval. Others of his books have had endings only dubiously happy; this is the only tragedy he has written.
The Author. Newton Booth Tarkington, 61, most famed present-day Hoosier author, lives in Indianapolis in the winter; in the summer at Seawood, his Kennebunkport house, which he calls "the House that Penrod Built."* As an undergraduate at Princeton he founded the Triangle Club (dramatic society) and was popular, but failed to graduate. He has had numerous honorary degrees to make up for it. Tall, thin and dark, he sits and walks with a stoop, smokes uncounted cigarets. He is quiet, reserved, has many friends, many devotees. During the last ten years his eyes have troubled him. Last month he went to Johns Hopkins, where he has already undergone two operations, for observation and treatment.
Other books: Gentleman from Indiana, Monsieur Beaucaire, The Two Vanrevels, Cherry, Conquest of Canaan, The Beautiful Lady, His Own People, Guest of Quesnay, The Flirt, Penrod, The Turmoil, Seventeen, The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams, Gentle Julia, The Midlander.
Three Lovely Girls
LOVE'S NOT ENOUGH—Simonne Ratel— Farrar & Rinehart ($2).
Frenchmen's reports of love are not often poignant, but such of their countrywomen as Colette (TIME, July 7) and Simonne Ratel help to balance the account. Authoress Ratel's novel, which won the Prix Minerva (1930), is not only clever but heartrending.