THE VOICES OF GLORY

by Davis Grubb ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This is a big, ambitions, often moving novel- and it is certainly Davis Grubb's best book since The Night of the Hunter. The living and dead in the town of Glory tell their own life histories, and the first part of the book has overtones of both The Spoon Rover Anthology and Perton Place. Each character speaks briefly for himself, and each life, rich or poor, mean or kind, has somehow been shaped by Marey Creasap. A nurse in the U.S. Public Health Service, whose husband and child have died of TB, Marcy is a dedicated, selfless woman who illuminates all other lives by contrast. Much of the book's first two thirds are rather black and white; the preachers, doctors, and other people in power are too often Bad (i.e against Marcy); the poor mining folk, town ne' er-do-wells, and sensitive people are Good (i.e. for Marcy). But toward the end, the life stories become longer, more ambiguous, more complete. Marry, and the one doctor on her side, are finally shown, mystically, as forces for life and health; and the ""Voices of Glory"" become all the voices of life, speaking from graveyard, street, pulpit, for or against life itself. Despite a somewhat difficult form of perhaps fifty different voices speaking, the novel is- basically- one voice (the author's); and it speaks often with tremendous faith, beauty, energy and good will about life. The capsule biographies are interesting and a picture of the town does emerge. And while perhaps somewhat sentimental, it is a basically attractive book.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962

Categories: FICTION