Recent Fiction
Brady, Susan
Recent Fiction by Susan Brady Constant reader has been in a frightful funk these days, almost defeated by the thought of going through those piles of books—all with jazzy covers and hyperbolic...
...del Castillo was three years old in 1936...
...his wife (or is it his mistress...
...Sillitoe, who may be one of those Angry Young Men we hear so much about, writes with skill, intelligence, humor and passion—an unbeatable combination...
...From the Hand of the Hunter (Houghton Mifflin Company, $3.75) by John Braine—A sick-making novel of life in a tuberculosis sanatarium by the author of Room at the Top...
...Recent Fiction by Susan Brady Constant reader has been in a frightful funk these days, almost defeated by the thought of going through those piles of books—all with jazzy covers and hyperbolic flap copy—to find one of quality...
...An American Romance (Simon and Schuster, $3.50) by Hans Konings-berger—Koningsberger's second novel (his first was The Affair) is an embarrassingly autobiographical story of a disastrous marriage...
...Briefly Noted The Disinherited (Alfred A. Knopf, $3.95) by Michel del Castillo—a plague-on-both-your-houses denunciation of the Spanish Civil War...
...It is a splendid collection of prose and poetry by or about the beat generation, which in this case seems to include those considered "with it" by the author...
...Alone in my study, I pray for an end to the pestilence of mediocrity that is upon us...
...The novel is interesting and at times amusing, even if you don't take the time to search for the needles of truth...
...Alfred A. Knopf, |3.50), a collection of nine good-to-excellent short stories by the author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning...
...The old standbys (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Fer-linghetti, Burroughs) are represented, along with such off-beat types as Chandler Brossard...
...Discussions of religion and Communism, with the issues defined with first-reader simplicity, alternate with scenes of poverty and degradation...
...I haven't read such an exciting paperback original since the early days of New World Writing...
...If nothing else, it proves that the best advice a mother can give her daughter is "Never wed a writer: if it works, you'll end up typing his manuscript...
...This critic almost "went mental" reading it...
...The title story is brilliant...
...The translation from the French is up to Richard Howard's usual high standards...
...Just as I was about to fall into the blackest despair, I read Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (New York...
...Of the other books up for review, I can give only a half-hearted recommendation to Jean Cayrol's Foreign Bodies (New York...
...if it doesn't, he'll put you in his next novel...
...G. P. Putnam's Sons, $3.50), the baffling confessions of an unregenerate liar who has just murdered (did he really...
...After finishing the books officially for review, I picked up The Beats (Gold Seal Books, Fawcett, 35 cents), an original anthology edited by Seymour Krim...
...it should be widely read...
Vol. 24 • May 1960 • No. 5
