A TIME TO LIVE

Introspective, politico-philosophical novel of a muddled man of good will as Pearl Harbor sets Ernest Cripton to thinking back over his life, and enables him to face the future with greater certainty. The 30's were for Cripton years of identification with most of the liberal-to-Communist issues, through his two closest friends. But Cripton himself never got beyond fellow-traveling, blamed his own cowardice, felt he lacked the courage of his convictions. The years brought marriage to Rosa, who died. He broke with his friends -- went to Hollywood -- but felt increasingly isolated, useless, unable to shake off his obsession with the memory of Rosa for the love of Vallie. Pearl Harbor brought to the fore his true faith in democracy and America; and at the end he accepts the validity of his love for Vallie. Overwritten -- diffuse -- but strikes a contemporary pattern of muddled thinking. O K of its kind.