THE BODY'S CAGE

by Benjamin DeMott ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 22, 1959

A first novel has a somnolent southern town as its scene, and in some slow-moving sequences, through the eyes of those engaged here, fills in the past and brings the present to its conclusion of recrimination and bitter revelation. Its victim will be Kimball Pick, nineteen when Mrs. Chithero comes to stay and pray his mother well- Elsie Pick has been a depressive for some time. The background to Mrs. Chithero's arrival in the household she takes over he does not know; the marriage the genteel Elsie had made to a workman- James Pick, after her disapproving father and ailing (drinking) mother had burned to death; the partnership between Stewart Chithero and James which had ended in bankruptcy- Chithero's suicide- and Mrs. Chithero's augury of the penance James must make. All that Kimball knows now, in the present, is that he must tend his consumptive younger sister- Em, who is dying. His attempt to put her in the hands of a local doctor for hospital care is blocked by Mrs. Chithero (and James, taciturn and acquiescent) whose faith healing cannot save her. It is only at the trial- on which Dr. Tandy insists and in which he is made a fool of- that some attempt is made to bring Mrs. Chithero to book for what has seemed an act of deliberate revenge, sustained when an even uglier incident in the past is exposed.... Desolate as most of this is, it offers a first novel intensively interesting as it reveals the estrangement of these lives; much of the writing has distinction.

Pub Date: April 22, 1959

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown-A.M.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1959

Categories: FICTION