FAMILY!

Report repeated from the December 15, 1959 bulletin, when scheduled for early spring, as follows: ""The Spragues were a family held together by the most tenuous of bonds. Ed and Clara-and their colorless children- almost made the 'Average American Family' of the year (though one would hate to see this as a typical picture). Charley was the big moneymaker- but could not buy sanity for his wife, nor affection from his children, who in their turn failed abysmally in their marriages. John Henry, also prosperous, had put himself outside through his marriage to Myra, from an orthodox Jewish background. And nobody in 'the family' had much in common with anybody else. Then came Virgie, confessedly free with her favors, more mother than lover to a succession of misfits- and Charley found what he wanted in her, and took her home as his wife (though without benefit of clergy). And then Virgie took over. She mothered the lot of them, brought happiness and understanding, and meaning to the term 'family'. But the end- for Charley and Virgie- was disaster, and one wonders how permanent her influence would prove. The telling is episodic and choppy; the style incredibly amateurish for so practised a hand as Fannie Hurst, and the whole adds up to a pretty low standard of professional writing.