A MIRROR FOR NARCISSUS

by Negley Farson ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This picks up the threads of The Way of a Transgressor and once again the immense vitality and magnetism of the narrator overrides the abysses into which his path leads. One might call this a fifteen year ""lost weekend"", for the theme of alcohol courses its way through the whole of those years. Bouts -- blackouts -- hangovers- one gets a bit saturated and disgusted. Then suddenly the magic of a pen that always spin a yarn picks one up again. Negley Farson lost successive jobs; tried successive cures; always seemed to be at strategic spots to get yet another story. The eternal journalist operated through the bouts and the blackouts and the hangovers. Sometimes the stories suffered; sometimes he let his audiences down; usually he came through. The life story picks up in the mountains of Slovenia. The success of The Way of a Transgressor took him back to the heady wine of his native United States. A journey south recalled dream days in Tidewater Maryland and Virginia; he encountered time turned back on itself in the Carolinas and Georgia -- and he'd had enough. England called -- then Norway -- then once again Slovenia. But the magic had departed. Could he find it in South America? Back again, a book to be written- so he sought a clinic in Bavaria, and the one doctor he respected. Next it was Africa-and to those who read Behind God's Back, this is one of the most revealing parts of the book. Africa's problem he faced forthrightly. He went back to Russia to assess again the other great problem of the modern world, and escape from there- with the war on- was a tricky thing. As the story nears its close, a house by the sea in Devon, with Eve, his wife (a stalwart soul, Eve) offered a chance to prove that commonsense was the answer to his problem, that escape from himself could not be found, -- in Bavaria, in Switzerland, in New York.... This is an honest book of self exploration. It has its high moments and its low. It too could be called The Way of a Tra

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1956

Categories: NONFICTION