A first novel, more than a little reminiscent of Carson McCullers in its indirect, illusionary, fragmentary technique, its concern with mood, largely melancholic. Here are the ""fascinations"" of Ellen:- Rod, her first cousin, to the shaming disgust of her neurotic mother; Joe, laborer in her father's mills, with whom she spends a night drunk on dago red; then in Boston, Lennie Thompson, barroom pianist, whom she picks up in a cheap bistro. Lennie is crippled and bitter, brutal; he had driven Alice, dance partner of happier days, away to a Negro copper, Gabe, and when Gabe is killed, Lennie turns from Ellen, back to Alice... There's some rather interesting imagist writing here with stylistic rather than external properties. Public Libraries-watch out.