IN THIS OUR LIFE

A new novel by Miss Glasgow is news, for six years have elapsed since her last, Vein of Iron, and each year adds glamor to the Glasgow legend. She has made a great contribution to the novel of contemporary life in America. This, while it does not measure up to her greatest work, is once again a novel that grows out of the characters she creates, rather than a story first, with characters molded to fit. The story revolves around the father of a family, a man who has given all the years of his life to the service of others, who has accepted circumstances humbling to his pride, because he put others first, who has bowed to the dictates of the circle in which he lives. Now, on the verge of finding freedom for himself, he is caught once more in the turning wheel of fate. At times one feels that Miss Glasgow has let herself to too much into long-drawn-out speculation, voiced by one character or another; the end seems perhaps futile, unresolved. But the characters remain, sharply etched on memory.