(3 of 4)
Harriette had always been called Blossom because families are funny that way. But the name did her less than justice: she had money, good looks and made more sense than any flower. But she married Lincoln Holt for love, and then discovered she was in the wrong generation. Lincoln was too cold to be a poet, too temperamental for a businessman; as a husband he was a little difficult. Ambrose, Blos- som's father-in-law, was really her opposite number. Ambrose wanted to be natural and have a good time. When he found he could not do it at home he just picked up and left. That finished Ambrose with his family, but Blossom understood, kept a warm spot in her heart for him.
When Ambrose finally returned after his odyssey, to live down by the lumber pile, Lincoln was scandalized and still furious. When Blossom stood up for her father-in-law Lincoln got mad and went away himself. Old Ambrose finally solved the difficulty by dying. That mollified his son, and Blossom, who had sense, went on being a wife & mother.
The Author, Susan Glaspell (Mrs. Norman H. Matson), relict of the late George Cram ("Jig") Cook, who was one of the founders of the Provincetown Players, has a bigger reputation as a playwright (Bernice, The Verge, Inheritors, Alison's House) than as novelist. She started as a political reporter in Des Moines, Iowa, went to Manhattan to write for the Provincetown Players, sandwiched a few novels in between her plays. Other books: Brook Evans, Fugitive's Return, The Road to the Temple (biography of her first husband).
Ambrose Holt and Family is rated aaa (for rentability, salability, suitability) by The American News of Books, monthly trade journal.
Post-War Teutonic
THE WEB or YOUTH—W. E. Süskind— Brewer, Warren & Putnam ($3).
Nobel-Prizewinner Thomas Mann thinks Author Süskind "belongs among the most gifted and . . . most representative members of the generation of young German writers." But only if you like earnestly humorless reports of adolescence, if you believe passionately in a Youth Movement, may you like what Author Süskind has to offer.
Fleming was a bright boy and stood well in his classes, but he got in trouble when the school authorities found he had spoken at a radical meeting. But being under a cloud did not keep him from graduating, and afterwards he had such luck on the inflated German stock market that his winnings kept his family in comfort and himself in their good graces. Meantime he fell in love with a poverty-stricken Norwegian girl, and their cat-&-dog affair lasted many a wearisome month. Then he became the gigolo of a shrewd, middle-aged business woman. When the market cleaned him out he decided it was time to grow up.
The Web of Youth is Author Willy Süskind's first novel, but he has published two books of short stories. He meant to be a student of history, went to work as a bank clerk and somehow began to write. Bavarian-born, he lives in Munich in spite of the fact it is regarded as an art centre. Thirty years old, his youth spared him from fighting in the late War. He went to college in Munich, thought university life "extremely insipid."
† Published March 30.
*New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.