NOW AND AT THE HOUR

This is the story of Alph LeBlanc, a mill-hand, and his last three months as he waits for cancer to effect its ultimate ravages. It is the story of a little man, helpless before the overwhelming fact of impending death, and his attempt to perform in his own terms an act worthy of the events which confront him. For Alph LeBlanc, father and husband, has made a pledge of silence. He will keep secret from his wife and children his awareness of his doom, and thus spare them the excruciating agony of utter pity. This he does, and so with death comes victory to Alph LeBlanc, whose life has been a sequence of servitude and defeats—his athlete son is crippled, a small daughter dies. Told largely in the present with occasional flashbacks, this is a form which will appeal only to the more morbid readers. For although the theme is one of moral triumph, the bulk of this book is a minute study of decay, pain, and fear, a faithful though uninspiring depiction of physical disintegration.