EDNA, HIS WIFE

Sure to reach top ranks in best seller lists over night. Bracket with Years of Grace and with Within This Present for sales. It has the same appeal in its very humanness, its faithful reflection of a segment of American life. The story of a self-made man, not one of the rough diamonds who made good, but an egocentric, ambitious, facile charmer, who took the rungs of the ladder in his stride, and swept sentiment and vain regrets aside. ""Edna, his wife"" didn't quite know what it was all about, and trailed him, always something of an annoyance to him, frequently a joke to his friends, rarely finding for herself a niche where she could fit in. Tragedy, yes -- but it is happening everywhere -- and with too often the same results. A readable tale and certain of popularity.