THE BURDEN OF ADRIAN KNOWLE

Fry, who has written several firm (one close to outstanding -- How A People Die) novels of indians up there in lower British Columbia, now works with more conventional materials to tell the boy-to-man, man-to-man, story of a father and son. Will Knowle is a brutal, powerful and unyielding rancher, who, like his forebears, has no contender for land or cattle in the territory; his son Adrian, gentle and unequal to the canon of ""hard work, callousness and guts,"" spends most of his years proving himself in the eyes of the ""meanest father I know"" -- well before the time when he attempts to become a bronc stomper and then leaves for another ranch. An easily likable novel which is invested with a certain strength without making an undue show of it (or its all too frequent corollary -- violence).