THIS STRANGER, MY SON

This boy of many faces, this stranger, my son"" is Tony, the eldest of Mrs. Wilson's four children; he cried a great deal as an infant; he was often unmanageable; but it was not until eleven (after two psychiatrists had indicated that the parents were more troubled than their child) that they realized that he was potentially dangerous. With more time and money spent with a third psychiatrist who accomplished-nothing, they finally institutionalized him and accepted the final diagnosis'--as a paranoid schizophrenic beyond any available treatment, Mrs. Wilson's book, less clinical and less substantive than Mrs. Park's The Siege (p. 1110) still does personalize the helplessness, the guilt, the discouragement and emotional erosion they experienced. Perhaps it will serve to lessen that of others, which is its primary intention.