THE FRESH AND OPEN SKY

A collection of short stories, previously published in high and middle browed periodicals. Mr. Sullivan's facile style glides smoothly in and out of these categories to meet the reader demands of each magazine. However, as long as he concentrates on the family unit, which is his specialty, the stories are extremely successful. Fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, husbands and ""the girl next door"", honeymooners, children in strange places -- all achieve an incisive identity in the focus of the home -- in this case middle-class American. In Honeymoon the new husband discovers a snake in the Garden of Eden in a dulcet wooing of his wife by an admirer; in In a Glass Darkly a lonely husband, losing his wife's love, finally succumbs to his status as the ""perfect husband""; there is a touching and penetrating story of a lost child and the adult grotesques who surround her; The Women is a sensitive story of a men's reflection about the women who love him -- mother, wife, and daughter; and A Queer Kind of Sorrow, to us the most memorable story, is a haunting yarn of young boys, and the tragic man who personified their fears. A wide range of appeal and an assortment of styles.