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THE CONTINENTAL TOUCH by Joseph Wechsberg

THE CONTINENTAL TOUCH

By

Pub Date: Feb. 17th, 1947
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin

No Looking for a Bluebird here, for this is a clinically observant and all too human a picture of one Louis Dellinick, later De Lino, who had more money, more women, more suits, more liquor than was good for him. From Central Europe, learning of sex from his father's actress mistress, learning to use the law to his own self-perverted ends, without integrity in any of his dealings, Louis found America a happy hunting ground until his sins were found out. He doublecrosses himself out of his jobs, makes love to other men's wives, his own wife's best friends, he foxholes the war in Washington, is aide to a General, and eventually tries to win back his present wife, who decisively tells him off. With no future, Louis makes one real gesture and goes on a trip to avenge his father's murder, a trip from which he never returns...Proving that European heels are no better than their American counterparts, this presents an intimate picture of an opportunist, his self-made destruction and the worlds on which he preys, and provides sharp contrasts in refugee circles and gullible Americans. Unrelenting, but often effective portraiture.