GLORY IN THE FLOWER

Even though this journal installment is subtitled ""The Tears and Trials of Letitia Sterling,"" the effusive sentimentality of The Keeping Days (KR, 1973) has eased up a little. Tish is still too much of a princess to be universally popular and she reflects and upholds the starchy morality of the ""nice"" people in turn-of-the-century Yonkers -- an ethic which today's young people might fred more frightening than quaint, Morality crops up again and again when she sublimates her feelings for Ken in the Browning Society's production of Romeo and Juliet, and sadly, as the class slut Mary Lou Hodge acts out her role to its pregnant conclusion, though the reader will realize long before Tish does just how much pluck goes into Mary Lou's bitchy pose. And Tish's meek friend Celinda becomes a victim of the other side of morality when her embittered mother adopts religion with a vengeance. Tish also makes spasmodic attempts to conquer her great fault of self-dramatization though most of her peers will enjoy seeing it indulged by her reign as Juliet. And the purposely anachronistic style and viewpoint forms a believable context for chronicling the myriad tears and trials of the freshman class of 1901.