THE MIDDLE OF THE JOURNEY

By a critic, editor, professor of considerable standing, this is a first new of some acumen and almost no physical motion, of considerable conscious intellectual tion but an equal emotional sterility. Presenting a rather self-preoccupied circle of liberals, this tells of John Laskell, as he spends a summer in New England after a win of illness during which he almost lost his life. Of his old friends there are the Cr enlightened and benevolent; Maxim, whose defection from the Party Laskell cannot con Kermit, rich publisher of a progressive magazine; and of the new acquaintances there the Folgers, salubriously New England; Duck Caldwell, amoral alcoholic; Emily, his wife who is seduced by Laskell and who provides the summer's tragedy and breakup when her little girl dies.. The ideological confusion, emotional instability of the literati reproduced with fidelity (and probably from experience) but providing little sympathy, often very little interest.