A WOMAN OF MEANS

Following a collection of short stories- A Long Fourth this first novel is an extension of the former medium, reveals again a fine-drawn talent which relies on the suggestive rather than overt, and which for all its delicacy of detail- is still ultimately insubstantial. Through the eyes of Quintus Dudley, twelve, the reader sees the marriage of his father, a self-made man in hardware, to Ann Lauterbach, a wealthy woman. There are the boy's memories of a poor but proud Southern background and the uncomfortable reality of non acceptance at a private school in St. Louis; there is his immediate attraction to his stepmother and the special relationship which exists between them; and there is finally the discord between his parents in which he is both go-between and target, and the tragedy of his stepmother's mental breakdown... Impressionistic, indirect, this is for a qualified, discriminating audience.