A STEP BEYOND INNOCENCE

by Nora Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A fever chart of Sally Fraits' four years at Smith is certainly clinical but it is also youthfully static, despairing and finally understanding. She has known that her parents' generation found it easy to fall in love -- she finds it is not and from Jack Bean, to Victor Ohme, to Richard Avery and finally to Homer Barnum, she is tortured, questioning, insecure and demanding -- of herself as well as those whom she fancies. While she grows in self knowledge, her roommate Jessica settles for a wealthy Texan, Maria abandons her Italian background to marry Peter, Rani accedes to family and gives up a research career, and the college years give way to Sally's own decision -- not to marry Homer but to take the job she has been offered. In The World of Henry Orient (1958) this author accomplished a teen-age portrait of compassion and sympathy; here her sympathy envelops Sally to some degree of exasperation for the reader but the full picture does reflect the shifting, searching collegian whose intelligence and conscience permit no compromise, whose shakedown to size is accomplished the hard way. A very feminine touch for a feminine subject.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown-A.M.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1961

Categories: FICTION