SEEN DIMLY BEFORE DAWN

by Nigel Balchin ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A versatile and practised writer (the cool intellectual suspense of The Small Each book, a subtle psychological period portrait- The Borgia Testament) avoids the soft spots of a potentially sticky theme so that this story of a young boy's infatuation with an older woman is a very readable entertainment. Walter Parrish, many years later, with the virtues that sometimes attend hindsight. (humor and detachment) tells the story of a summer spent with his uncle in Kent, and the much younger Leonie he had assumed to be his wife. Leonie in strikingly attractive, unconventional, direct, and a local target along with her Aisatian, Remus, a sheep worrier and killer. Walter, a tall fifteen, just graduating from the ""messy complications of adolescence"" is an easy victim and Leonie, in her forthright fashion, is receptive- but uses the boy in her attempt to save Remus and then avenge his death at the hands of a vigilant neighbor. At the close, the clash of innocence and experience has its inevitable disillusion. It will be momentary, and the book will have no longer lasting effects, but it offers facile, pleasant entertainment.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962

Categories: FICTION