THE GIFT AND THE GIVER

Nelia Gardner White was one of the few writers of the contemporary scene who combined a penetrating sense of character and the impact of life in the round on character development, with a warm appreciation of the daily pattern of recognizable happenings, a background of the New England countryside, and of the recognizable people and situations the average reader welcomes. In this- her last novel- she tells, in the first person, the story of a woman who has cheated herself of her birthright. In her proud determination to make those nearest her what she felt they should be, she has thrust out of her life a husband, who loved her but would not deny himself his integrity of being; the small daughter, who grew up to beauty and a mature sort of wisdom without her mother; a son, whom she thought she adored and understood- but who was deeply unhappy and found escape in strange aberrations of character. Cornelia understood herself least of all- and it took tragedy and rejection to bring some right out of the spiderweb of wrong for others- and to make her face her own failures in loneliness of her own creation. It is perhaps her most penetrating and at times disturbing book.