THE SANDS OF SUMMER

Things just turn out, don't you think?"" says youngish Arthur Thompson at the close of a book in which nothing has turned out very well at all. Working in a toy-game manufacturing company at an indeterminate job, married to Rose who spends quite a bit of time nagging and nattering, he turns to Elaine, a girl in his office, for a spot of sex. Even though he takes her to the son, it is not too responsively given. Actually Elaine, while common, is also unpleasant and she runs out on him and has her boyfriend carve him up with a knife which scrawls ""RAT"" across his face. At the end he is left without an eye, a job, or a wife, which others, perhaps not quite so well schooled in the acceptance world of Life As It Is, might not meet with such ready resignation... This fable of the English lower middle classes, not quite as grubby as Sillitoe- et-al's working classes, is still fairly drab even though it has been handled here with noticeable economy and accuracy.