THE NIGHTINGALES ARE SINGING

Another Anglo-American marriage, (which might almost be a follow-up to Westward The Sun) here pursues the wedded life of Christine and Vin, after she leaves England, comes to America and lives in Washington. Thirty four years old, independent and forthright, Christine's romance isn't too glamorous and she isn't too sure about her feelings for Commander Vinson Gaegler, but when her aunt dies, she knows she must make the break, and follows Vin for their wedding on her arrival. Then she starts to learn the pattern she must follow, the codes for a Navy wife, Vin's jealousy and rather priggish subservience to rank, the tightrope between his mother and brother, their neighbors and military friends, the routine in this new land of plenty. Her pregnancy holds bright promise but when she loses the baby and Vin is assigned to Panama duty, it is to England she turns and there she finds she is more alien than in America. Her affair with Tommie Burns, begun on shipboard, continues in Washington, where he is teaching, and Vin's homecoming poses an emotional question -- which is ended by Tommie's death when they are in an auto accident. It is her unshrinking honesty which assures a future for the marriage which had been threatened by divergent manners and thought, differences of opinion -- and personalities. No literary turning point but, allowing for a British point of view, a feminine angle on domesticity that has spark and intelligence.