An oddly old-fashioned novel, with deliberate gestures towards modern accoutrements and details -- but a book that conservatives whose memories span two world wars will find successful recall of boom and depression and war years. At times nostalgic, both in fact and mood, as well as in patterns of thought. Today's generation of readers will feel the story a bit padded and at times irritating on its insistence on certain too-orthodox attitudes...This is the story of the rocky road of a first world war romance-- of the difficulties of adjustment as an all-possessive mother who thought her son had married beneath him when he chose a girl in a small town near camp, attempts to dictate the pattern after the war. The story traces the ups and downs-the near breaks- the reknitting of broken threads. Against a background of publishing- of New York society- of Bar Harbor- of a way of life that may never come again, the story builds to what might have been a repeat performance as the son, just old enough for World War II, marries a girl in Florida- and his mother, just in time, holds tight rein on the instinctive reactions that- in her mother-in-law- had endangered her own marriage. A wholesome sort of story, despite some straying from accepted standards. But its success will stem largely from the author's established name.