INDIAN PAUL

A book of latent prejudice and ignorance in a small mid-western town, stimulated to mob madness and hysteria by the matricide of Indian Paul, a half-witted, dissolute aboriginal. A lynching is averted by the town doctor -- to be taken up by four teen-agers infected by the bigotry of their parents. The indecision and fear of the boys as they contemplate and then accomplish their crime --and the author's feel of place -- give this novel what distinction it has. Otherwise the author leaves the character of the Indian, as do most writers, a mystery to the reader -- and hardly scratches the surface of the plot's potentialities.