CONTINENT'S END

This is a collection of California writing makes one feel that perhaps the best writing done today comes out of that fertile state. The general high level is extraordinary, whether Mr. Jackson has lifted incidents from complete books (as in the case of Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle, or Bozzorides' The Long Haul, or Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, or Gals Wilhelm's The Time Between); or taken short stories from collections, or comments from biographies (Lewis--The Big Four, Lyman's Ralston's Ring, Steffon's Autobiography etc.), or fragments which give a picture he wants, or verse, much of it from New Directions. The resulting whole is a panorama of California, large today, but rooted in a rich and colorful past. This is definitely not the California of the Chambers of Commerce, but the California of many nationalities, many ways of life, of Varying scenery, of pulsing humanity and an undercurrent of unrest. Each extract is introduced with a brief commentary on the part of the editor, who is well known as loading critic on the Pacific Coast, and literary editor of The San Francisco Chronicle.