NOW, VOYAGER

An appealing novel which should both rent and sell well. It has the goods:- engaging if somewhat stereotyped picture of old conservative Back Bay Boston, likable characters, good situations. The events develop around Charlotte Vale, in her mature thirties, dominated by a dowager mother, victimized to point of nervous breakdown, and then brought alive again by wise medical treatment and postgraduate cruise to the Mediterranean, where new clothes, a new personality, uninhibited, and an idyllic and colorful interlude in Italy with a New York businessman, himself escaping the dominance of a whining wife, and three daughters. Then the return, each to the chains that convention demands. Subsequent meetings, frustration and finally resolution in finding a job to do for Tina, the youngest daughter, who has come to live with Charlotte. There is a wealth of warmth and color, and Charlotte emerges as an excellent characterization, always honest to point of bluntness, and gradually developing into being exceedingly attractive. Above all, it is good reading.