BY THE DIM LAMPS

This is a long historical novel of New Orleans and Louisiana during and after the Civil War, that focuses on the love troubles of Hugh and Sally, and panoramas the whole political, social, and economic problems of those years. Against a background of political corruption and plunder, the Negro and labor issues, the destructive driving forces of Southern pride and hotheadedness, is set the story of Hugh, the realist, and Sally, the romantic. Sally, perpetually caught in the emotion of the moment, cannot condone farsighted Hugh's actions, his training for the war he knows will shortly come, his management of a plantation for the Federal government, his political work during the reconstruction. But at the close, recognizing the wisdom of his moves -- and freed from a loveless marriage, she capitulates. This seems to have everything, save the vital narrative quality that made Gone With The Wind. There is, nevertheless, still a market for this type of book.