ROLL RIVER

A new departure for the author of Drums, Long Hunt, etc. --this story of a man's life span, bringing it into the contemporary picture. Again a ""frame"" has been used as a vehicle for a story. The book opens with a man on his death--bed. Through his half consciousness flows the stream of his past life, sharpening, clarifying, filling in details of which his conscious being was scarcely aware. The first panel of the story is placed in the '80's, and to that period of self-conscious growing pains of a young people, Boyd has applied the same uncanny faculty for breathing life and reality into a distant scene. Aunt Clara, whose story is here told, is a moving force throughout the here's life; he is a small boy at the time of her marriage and its tragic outcome. But through her understanding he is saved from crashing his own matrimonial bark. An absorbing book, a real contribution to the presentation of a facot of the American scene. Good reading, and should be easy to sell, easy to rent. Try the Margaret Ayre Barnes' market -- with a leaning to the male aspects of it.