SELDOM WITHOUT LOVE

There's both wild humor and insinuating tenderness in this novel which celebrates humanity, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, the wonder of life, and a passel of palpitating acres of earth called Prestonville, Texas. Above all seasons Anne loves the wonderful; hot, crazy summer. She is the wife of Sam Carlson, the blacksmith, and harnessed to the beauty of earth by a new hearing aid, she begins to collect for a Catholic Church. There are donations of depression pigs, gruffly tended by strange old Gramps; then there are obstructions imposed by the serene and lordly Bishop; and finally she sacrifices her hearing machine for a sanctified plot of ground, having stubbed her toes all along the way. ""Whatever little thing we do... is important beyond measure"" and this credo comes through in scenes of inspirational power although many of the incidents (a wild tractor ride; a bogus shotgun feud; and a pig slaughter) have an earthbound realism. The novel is, in a sense, a litany for life.