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THREE: 1964 by Pohoryles; Widmer & Robinson

THREE: 1964

By

Publisher: Random House

These three very good short novels by quite different authors make up this diverse book. They are arranged in an ascending order of maturity in tone and characters. In Robert H. Robinson's Going the Other Way, Bro, a bright, post-Salinger 16-year-old upsets conventions in several funny, poignant, slightly unlikely adventures. Eleanor Widmer's fierce, absorbing portrait, Mister Jack, is that of a ailor in the 1930's, a dandy, raconteur and eccentric domestic tyrant, and it is hold mercilessly but with bitter joy and humor. These two stories are young and vaguely autobiographical, but Egon Pohoryles' The Coming of Monsieur Alazay jumps ahead into the imagined old age of a retired French administrator who, thinking logically about death and God, concludes he is Christ. In his frantic efforts to be believed he does indeed become a kind of holy man. The three novelle are well-written and between them cover many ages of human experience.