THE RISING TIDE

Ireland again -- closer to the norm in characterization than her previous books which verged on the abnormal (Devoted Ladies--'34; Full House--'35). There is less of her rather brittle humor, more of the psychological aspects of her plot. She writes of a family of sisters, with one brother who alone has escaped the dominance of his mother and the house which enshrouds them all. He marries, and precipitates a storm in the midst through his young wife, who, seemingly acquiescent, goes her own way, and makes her own laws, gradually winning the allegiance of the one rebel among the girls, the youngest daughter. The war widows her; the fight against the mother-in-law and the house goes on. As the years pass, she becomes promiscuous, casual, hard -- but at the close of the book, rises triumphant over her son's gesture back towards the house dominance she has virtually crushed. A strange but eminently readable -- though not often pleasant -- story.