THE EARLY FROST

by Clare Jaynes ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 1952

A close-up of an unwanted girl which for all its smoothness of texture does not avoid some bitter truthtelling in the story of her painful adaptation to a world in which she has no place. For Lann Saunders, awkward, vague, vulnerable, is the victim of her mother's rejection when Natalie, a glamorous bitch, maintains a permanent exile of school and camp for the daughter who was just an ""accident"" to start with. And against a boarding school background of bobbie pins and cuticle oil, of girls with parents as well as boys, Lann is seen- as she answers ""Personals"" to fill up her mailbox, as she builds up her mother's second wedding which is held without her, as she elaborates the fiction of a swimming instructor to discover it was her mother he was after, as she cringes from the memory of the only time she'd evoked desire- in an unappetizing elevator boy, as she returns to a new apartment to find that the prospect of a baby leaves her with no room of her own, and as- at the year's end- the totality and finality of her exclusion takes her a long way from home.... Not just the entertainment values of Instruct My Sorrows, etc., this plays on some exposed emotions and quickens more than a little compassion and conviction.

Pub Date: July 7, 1952

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1952

Categories: FICTION