THE HEART ALONE

A period piece- the setting Providence a generation and more ago -- and the focus of the story the emotional conflict between two girls who, from childhood on, love the same man. Easter was nine, her cousin Amy eleven, when the splitup between Easter's parents sent her to live with her uncle and aunt. And Dickie Winston, the boy next door, was immediately the issue between them. Easter had learned to be alone in a world of people who needed others; she felt that Dickie was Amy's, even when years later their marriage was on the rocks. And the resolving of her character, and of spoiled and ruthless Amy's, makes the holding value of the book, rather than the story, which is thin and somehow contrived. Psychologically speaking, a more mature book than Call It Treason. Definitely a woman's book.