A LOST KING

Following The Coming of Fabrizze (1960) which attracted the critics this comes closer in time, continues the lyric line, and presents, along with the foreign quarter of Cleveland, a distinctive handling of a father-son theme. Paul Christopher loves, teases, defies and annoys his father who is now, although ""tough like a tree"", brooding about his lost strength, and lost power over his family. To please him Paul tries one job after another, succeeds in none, is happy only driving a horse and wagon selling watermelons and playing his harmonica. His driving need to talk, his inability to conform and his ability to lose himself in just loving wreck his romance with young Peggy; he knows his own unhappiness when he is trying to learn to become a butcher, haul potash, work on an assembly line; he knows too when he can please and displease his father. Even when he is turned out of the house he arranges a special birthday party for him and when death follows Paul's grief cannot be comforted. Greeks and Poles and vigor in living will recall the early Saroyan books, will not disappoint readers of Fabrizze.