(2 of 2)
Four novelists with solid reputations hold most of the ground they have already gained but gain little new in their latest books. Nicholas (The Cruel Sea) Monsarrat gets as far away from ships and war as he can in The Story of Esther Costello (Knopf). It is a skillfully written attack on the ruthless ballyhoo which makes an innocent handicapped girl the center of a charity racket. Another novelist who finds it hard to do anything seriously wrong is Wright Morris. In The Deep Sleep (Scribner), he dissects the private lives of a Philadelphia Main Line family, and shows that things aren't what they seem to the neighbors. In his new book, In Love (Harper), Alfred Hayes, author of The Girl on the Via Flaminia, explores an unpleasant Manhattan love affair without writing an unpleasant book. In The Sleeping Beauty (Viking), British Novelist Elizabeth Taylor tells of a middle-age love affair at an English seaside resort.
In October, the publishers are planning to bring out several hundred more.