A SEASON IN ENGLAND

With England and a neurotic family as his tools and Egypt in the mental background, P. H. Newby has written the story of a recently dead university professor's mysterious revolt against the authority and affection of his parents. At the university in Cairo, Guy Nash was a well liked man. On a brief sojurn in Greece he married Renee, handsome, rather tempestuous, and a woman with a mind of her own- but after his death and in spite of the fact that he kept the marriage a secret from his parents, his friend Tom Passmore returns to England to search out Mr. and Mrs. Nash on a mission of discovery and of some relief for Renee whom he now loves. It is through Passmore that most of the story is delivered. There is the background of Egypt and Greece, though the novel actually describes only Tom's three months' visit to England. Already acclaimed for three other U. S. published novels, this English writer's handling of the important problems of love, convention and the human bonds and obligations thereby fostered, is direct, refreshing, suspenseful. His prose style is clear, thoughtful and in some passages achieves a sense of organic unity with the whole work. Another in the tradition of modern British novels, A Season in England though not as deep as some, is interesting, meritorious reading.