THE LITTLE LIE

Next door to Ethan Frome, this is a thin-lipped New England story of tyrannical victimization--that of Dee, over her various roomers, and over her brother Oliver and his wife, Erna. But when her lodger Chad walks out on her (to be followed by her family's defection) Dee tells little lies which will permit her to save face, until, when backed into a corner . . . As one might well expect, The Little Lie is a practiced deception.