AMERICAN QUEST

I'm afraid I can't go along with the publishers' enthusiasm for this, which seems to me a novel which is not a novel, a panorama of America which is artificial in presentation, a social treatise which is idealistic and inconclusive. Through the journeryings of Walt Quest, the reader sees phases of life and background in America today, ""all sorts and conditions of men"" from magnates in Big Business to share croppers, white and colored, from moving picture stars to bums in New York parks. Quest is seeking the true America, and aiming to share experience with all men, at every level, and hoping to leave things just a little better in each place. The story is told by straight narrative, blank verse, throwbacks to bits of history, flashes of scenes, bits of drama. In concept the book is too idealistic for the average seeker of romance and too maudlin in its romance for the philosopher. Ultimately, Quest comes home to the girl he left behind him and finds his place in the educational system, laying fertile soil in the young.