MOTHER OF THE SMITHS

This comes nearer to giving me the sort of thrill I had in reading Giants in the Earth by Rolvaag, than anything else I can at the moment remember. I've double-starred it for your special attention, for it is a first novel -- and it hasn't the endorsement of a book club to help launch it. And yet I am confident it is a book that word of mouth publicity should bring to the forefront. So -- read it for yourselves, and blaze some trails for it. It is the story of Sabe Smith, mother of six sons, wife to a good-tempered useless dreamer. From Texas to Taos, New Mexico, they come, to find themselves vastly outnumbered by their Mexican neighbors, and with the envious, malicious Nolans next door and the white doctor, drunk when most needed, as their only white friend. But Sabe makes a place for herself, she brings up her small brood against all odds, she wins the education she demands for them by sheer grit. There's enough of sheer sentiment to endear this to those who want a modern Mrs. Wiggs, but it is liberally salted with humor and irony, and vividly colored with the back curtain of New Mexico and its mountains, for those who want their frontier stories a bit hardier. A sure best seller for the Southwest and West; and should win readers everywhere. Good Americana.