THE GINGER MAN

Written by an American who has lived in London for several years, this is of a piece with the current crop of young men who find an aesthetic in uglinces, who, in concentrating on one hapless individual, would bring down the importance of mass man, and whose murky, squalid dossiers have their interest in the sum of the whole rather than any one part. The always shameless, often shameful posturing focus here is on an American married to an English girl and with a little daughter, Sebastian Dangerfield, who is getting a degree in law at Trinity, in Dublin; his "cloacal grip on life" leads him to other arms, other beds and other areas of nuisance value. His drinking, indebtedness and irresponsibility send his wife packing, he follows and more moves are involved; there are reprisals against landlords, creditors and the milking of a spinster tenant; there's a trip to London and, when Sebastian is all but sunk, there is the help of an old friend from Dublin and reunion with Mary, who has followed him and is willing to work for them both. Accompanying Sebastian's passage of passions are the attempts of another American, O'Keefe, to lose his virginity — without success. This rogue's progress is ably and fairly introduced by Arland Ussher; published in England, it created a stir and sales; it is being readied for critical attention: it is for those unfettered minds previously softened by Amis, Osborne & Co., and sensing the human comedy implied.