I, MY ANCESTOR

by Nancy Wilson Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 30, 1949

Again a story of a marriage on the rocks, though in this case, the central character is a man, Philip Stewart, while in The Left Hand Is The Dreamer, Fredericka was the one to whom life had become a meaningless treadmill. In contrast to the earlier book, I, My Ancestor is set chiefly in the Pacific Northwest, an island in Puget Sound, where Tom, Philip's father, lives content with beauty and basic necessities and good companionship and the philosophy he has evolved through difficult years. In New York, Fate has piled things against Philip,- there's the pressure of the motion picture industry on the New York story editor; there's the futile round of the social gristmill; there's his wife's blundering attempts to resuscitate a love that has dwindled; there's a run-in with a burglar, which ends in attack and concussion and a mental breakdown...Then Philip goes out to the father whom he had not seen since his childhood -- and finds, not peace, but at least a philosophy on which to build a future. An odd book, ending on a questioning note, with issues still at loose ends. But much of it makes interesting reading, in a contemporary assessment of today's personal values. The idyllic island life, the lovers who are neighbors, the brief contacts with reality all seem illusive and unreal. But the story is primarily a story of the torture of a man to whom life has become meaningless- and of the serenity of a man who has found his way through the morass. Not patterned to popular taste as was the predecessor, but holding reading.

Pub Date: Jan. 30, 1949

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1949

Categories: FICTION