OR CALL IT WINTER

A satirically edged island interlude, in the tropics, where the heat- and liquid intake- is high, nerves and relationships fray, and several interested onlookers contribute to the decline and fall of the marriage of John Langdon, an artist, and Zelma his wife, who only wants to go back to Winnetka where John would undoubtedly earn more money as a customer's man. There is Mrs. Langdon, his mother, who views with dismay Zelma's resentful reactions; Alice Westcott, once in love with John, and now proselytizing for psychoanalysis after a cure on the couch; Orin, a painter, and Sara, the mistress he had never married; Belle Tobin, social arbiter and trouble instigator; etc. etc. And finally when Zelma leaves him, John recognizes that the failure of his work lies in the failure of his marriage, and he recovers his faith in himself and in his future... There's a certain acid amusement, if no great depth, to all of this.