NO ONE'S KINDNESS

by George Loveridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1945

I found this, I confess, a story of unrelieved drabness and mediocrity. A middle class family -- a New England city several hundred miles from the sea -- and a group of characters all of whom are either unpleasant or dull. Anna, the central figure, is occasionally ennobled by her selflessness, but she has no spark of magnetism. She has given up her own job to take care of her dead sister's children -- and she marries their father, for convenience rather than love. A few years of penny pinching, highlighted by the birth of their son and the near drowning of Anna in an attempt to save Angela, selfish, spoiled older daughter -- and then the father dies. When Frankie is old enough for school, Anna goes back to work -- escapes just in time, and with a tiny profit, from the stock market fever, but holds on to a job with difficulty during the subsequent years. One follows the difficult growing up process of the three children, -- Gracie alone is no problem, marries and moves away; Angela gets wilder and wilder, and comes acropper with a rotter, who gyps Anna of her sole possession, the house, and finally -- in a violent quarrel with Frankie, home on leave from his ship, gives Anna cause for leaving the only home she has known. The last scene shows her providing a way to have some share in the care of her grandchild at a day nursery....Dull reading.

Pub Date: May 25, 1945

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Appleton-Century

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1945

Categories: FICTION