THE MIGHTY DISTANCE

This first collection of short stories uses the Southwestern background and later milieus of the author and the title story finds two oil-rich Texas couples on a hunting trip with an apathetic rancher and an enigmatic Negro chauffeur. Despite skillful touches of Faulkner, Lawrence and Eudora Welty, it ends on a minor and unfulfilled note. On the Pavement recreates that moment when a small town adolescent girl begins to think ahead, but sympathy and interest is cut short by the story's abrupt end. There is fine insight in Shall We Gather at She River and Christmas Frees are White In Texas along with a certain amount of discomfiture; and Jacob's Angel is perhaps the strongest story dealing with fine contrasts between a New England Jew, a Negro drunk and a Boston snob..... On the whole, this debut shows a certain flair even if the overall effect is variable; there are both exciting and dull moments.