IRMA AND THE HERMIT

19 months of life in Korea make a sometimes gay, generally entertaining book, for Irma writes with a sparkle and an eye for the ludicrous in foreign living. Joining Joe, a U. S. Major in the Korean Constabulary Officers' Training School, she sails from Seattle with her baby whose sickness scares her and the medical staff on board. But Stevie gets better and Joe's arrangements for his family are unusual enough to keep Irma in a mad circle of misadventures, with her servants, food and meals, and the language. They finally move to a Quonset hut and find life much simpler. She has blithe tales of the sanitation problems, the Police College, the chaotic traffic and transportation situation, the problems of saving face, and the non-glamorous routine of an Army wife: she offers some serious thought on the background and future of Korea, a ""baby republic to be"", on the effect of the war there, on the influence of Japan and Russia, on the need for U.N. control. Irma, Joe and Stevie give the reader a first hand, amazingly fresh picture of the ""Hermit Kingdom"" that will be easily enjoyed.