MRS. CANDY AND SATURDAY NIGHT

The market for Suds in Your Eye, will feel a kindred spirit in Mrs. Candy, her dead husband's ghost, her range of roomers, worthy companions to Mrs. Feeley, Mrs. Rasmussen, Miss Tinkham. But there are marked variants. Mrs. Candy lives in New Orleans; her problems, beyond her zest for a good party and drinking, have little in common with the Californians. Mrs. Candy, faltering on her way to a second marriage, is confronted by a social welfare worker, and her hungry companion; by a couple whose fighting leads to an elopement; a despairing, lonely girl, and a hard-drinking, lonely boy. Mrs. Candy is further confounded by the appearance of Mrs. Candy, who does not help matters when he decides to join in the festivities of the impromptu Saturday night party. What with killjoy neighbors, with police arriving, with a good fist fight and a near suicide, Mrs. Candy is lucky to get her man -- and lose her haunting....This lacks the happy, light-hearted touch and the high-tempered fun of Suds, but it does have a not unlike assembly of characters, more deeply investigated, along with the succession of incidents, amusing, tender, sometimes impossible, that round out into a palatable tale. Voodoo in New Orleans and Gumbo YaYa introduced Robert Tallant to a wide fellowship.