LNUT GROVE

This nostalgic tale of a boyhood in a turn-of-the-century frontier town in Texas is somewhat romanticized and softened. Its most vivid sequences deal with John's oldest sister, desperate to be married to anyone before she becomes a hopeless spinster of eighteen. John, the central character, is a somewhat nebulous boy who serves primarily as a viewpoint through which the minor dramas of a limited, talkative small community are filtered. The advent of teachers, a railroad and progress all broaden John's outlook, and he ends up by breaking with his past and determining to become a school teacher. It is a gentle and valid book, full of the feel of such small towns, and pleasant reading within the genre although the minor characters lead to be more interesting than John is. A recollection, basically, rather than a novel.