THE SPARE ROOM

In successive books, Nella Gardner White has established herself as interpretator of the American small town, New England variety. I liked this district nurse, Ann Pilchard, better than any of her other characters. There's a touch of the poet behind her blunt, forthright exterior; there's a softness concealed by what passes for an unsympathetic front. But despite the town's acceptance of her own valuation of herself, they are only too ready to criticize and condemn and put the wrong interpretation on her harboring a sick stranger, whose mysterious silence about himself conceals unhappiness and insecurity. Her privacy is invaded by his presence, her relationship with the enigmatic Jo Gowan, war widow, is disturbed, but before the month is out each of the three has found ways of coming to terms with life. A warm portrait of a rural neighborhood, cross cut with the fraillties as well as the strengths of human beings.