THE MORTAL STORM

The best thing she has done since Private Worlds -- a book which should insure a comeback for an author who has slipped badly in sales. The story in itself is well done, but its major importance lies in its revelation of the effect of the beginnings of the Nazi regime on the lives of everyday citizens, of the mounting pall of fear and intolerance, and its invasion into private lives. The situation -- a united family, the mother, Aryan, patrician, her two eldest sons, born of a first marriage, her youngest son and only daughter, children of her beloved husband, a Jewish scientist and saint, adored by all. The older youths become Nazis -- and the poison of anti-Semitism, aggravated by their feelings about their sister's Communist peasant lover, precipitates the crisis which wrecks their lives. An intensely and convincingly human story, and an interesting picture of how, even in its beginnings, the virus of Nazism makes its deadly way. Not a horror story -- like The Oppermanns -- but the story of a shattered romance, and of indomitable courage. A new publisher means fresh enthusiasm in supporting the book with the trade.