LAMB IN HIS BOSOM

First runner-up in the Harper prize contest, and the book of the six which, I understood, were sent to the judges, to which this reader would have awarded the prize. A book that compares very favorably with SOUTH MOON UNDER, both in tempo and background, though the period is an earlier one. The saga of a Georgia pioneer family, poignant, poetic, intangibly appealing, and yet not for a moment lacking in vigor and virility and power. The plot is tenuous, the interest centers in the weaving of the pattern of life and death, of love and hate, of small things such as the annual trip to the coast, the planting and harvesting of the crops, the preparation for marriage, almost from birth. The characterizations live vividly in memory long after the story has faded. A moving, vital tale, a book which will live. If it is a first published novel, the author has given herself long and arduous schooling, for the book has none of the earmarks of inexperience. A book which your discriminating public will want to own, not to rent.