NOT AT HOME

Shrewd, social comedy, as a small circle of army wives, husbands, and attachments are brought into view in their circumscribed life of a British army station in India. In a tart, gently acidulous, but consistently amusing manner Parr Cooper takes them apart and puts them together again. There is Mary, nineteen and just married, immature and susceptible with somewhat romantic notions which her painfully average, painfully military husband has not satisfied. There is Veronica, the sophisticate, and the wisest of the lot. There is the unmarried bait, Prunella with her girl guide outlook, and Valerie, a seductive if vain chit. Here they all are -- carping, prying -- vying with each other, on a small scale. Alternately human, pathetic, and uncomfortably genuine. A woman's book which is bright and astringent.