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WILL MRS. MAJOR GO TO HELL? by Aloise B. Heath

WILL MRS. MAJOR GO TO HELL?

By

Pub Date: July 11th, 1969
Publisher: Arlington House

Devotees of the National Review will fondly recall the regular column written by the late Mrs. Heath, eldest sister of the redoubtable editor, whose humorous offerings are presented here. The first half of the book contains her memories, originally privately printed for family consumption, of growing up in the warm, wealthy Buckley manse, peopled by Father (who raised his brood with ""the quite simple objective that they become absolutely perfect""); Mother (who, mother-like, simply had to face the fact that ""All my children are talented""); and Aloise, John, Priscilla, Jimmy, Jane, Patricia, Reid, Maureen, Carol; and of course, Billy, famous for writing the King of England to insist he pay reparations for the Revolutionary War. The recollections are gently amusing, though like all such, they tend to overestimate the importance of the subjects, sub specie aeternitatis. The rest of the book is mostly drawn from Mrs. Heath's National Review contributions. There are some funny bits about movie mags, the sociology of the car pool, and masculine vanity ("". . . the definitive list of the fields in which men excel women: athletics, musical composition, physical strength, singing baritone, and superiority""), though the writer has some stylistic traits that the reader may find a wee bit annoying. There are also some slightly more polemical remarks on Adlai Stevenson, the New Math, and the political indoctrination of children (she's for it). It's All a Matter of Taste.