BLACKBIRDS ON THE LAWN

A thoroughly likeable first novel, written in perhaps an old tradition, but rather a relief, at that. The time is today -- the setting, a Kentucky village, in which the two leading families have carried into the third generation the tradition of a feud. Linda Tarnol nurses her resentment, bitterness increased by her brother Henry's determination to ignore the feud; Dogma Merril does not hesitate to cross the line to seek Henry as tutor to her invalid boy, and later -- when her doctor son is in trouble ever a threatened lawsuit, to send for Henry in consultation. Through the resolving of Dr. Martin's problem, Henry and Dogma are first drawn closer -- then separated by the mystery of which she knows the tragic answer. And the village lines up -- and at the close shows the real stuff of which Americans are made. The doctor is reenstated, in time to get his commission and Henry -- with his sister, Linda's death, has a chance to go back into his post as editor. A warmly human picture of small town interplay of personalities.