BOW DOWN TO WOOD AND STONE

by Josephine Lawrence ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 1937

Josephine Lawrence has made a definite niche for herself and -- wisely from the commercial point of view -- keeps to the thesis novel, presenting in fiction form a succession of everyday problems, and telling a good yarn about everyday people. This new novel (under a new imprint) lacks the freshness of the earlier books, perhaps, but is dictinctly better craftsmanship and wider in scope. The delusion of self sacrifice is her theme:- mother love with its result in alienating the natural affection of children smothered by devotion and possessiveness; spinster self abnegation, as a means of feeling onesself needed, whether through money, service, physical presence; wifely sacrifice, ostensibly for the purpose of launching the husband's career, actually for the sense of controlling that career and molding its pattern. One feels a certain inevitability and obviousness in the recurrent pattern, but -- forgetting the purpose behind the story, the story itself holds the reader's interest, and should appeal to all who liked The Sound of Running Feet and If I Have Four Apples (and there were many).

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1937

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1937

Categories: FICTION