HEAVEN IS MY DESTINATION

Sure of a market on two counts — it is "the new Thornton Wilder" (and the author of The Bridge of San Luis Rey has a picked audience); and it will have the publicity of the Book-of-the-Month Selection back of it. This is the first Wilder book under the Harper imprint, so the publishers are backing it with extensive promotion and advertising....This is the story of George Brush, star graduate of Siloh Baptist College, and of his adventures as an educational book salesman through the middle west and south. Tarred with the Rabelasian brush and garnished with the James Joyce — D. H. Lawrence vocabulary, the story develops the adventures of the "perfect logical man" and the consequences of a "perfectly logical attitude toward life". They move the reader to pity or derision, but it is hard to find much sympathy for a man who doesn't smoke, drink or swear, who is strong as an elephant, has a beautiful tenor voice and knows his Bible by heart. A ray of hope comes when he buys a pipe in the last chapter....A far cry from the subtle charm of The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Woman of Andros; but perhaps it will interest readers who rejected the fantasy element of the earlier books. And it will sell.