A FIRM WORD OR TWO

This Life With Son continuity from the time when Bobby Adams is seven on upward is an amiable succession of minor ordeals patched up with a few bandaids, like sentiment. There's Bobby when he gets lost om Halloween and is a disconcerting presence at an adult party; when he drops a ring to be retrieved through a subway grating; on various safaris to Grant's tomb or a picnic; or at fourteen, when taken off to boarding school; and finally during his first year at college when he decides to drop out and is only waiting for that ""firm word or two,"" namely one, No... Not trying as hard as he has in the past, Benchley comes off better; like pennies and marbles, this adds up to the small change of boyhood experience, and if no more lasting, it's affable.