IMPORTANT PEOPLE

A book which should ride to sales in the Ingersoll, Marcia Davenport market, of current recognition -- this is another ""satire of tycoon society"", a gamey pursuit of big-game, those with financial or social prestige. As satire, this is sharp rather than subtle, glossed with sensationalism and some sex, and the whole achieves an entertainment rather than an intellectual level, despite the publishers linking it with Huxley's Point Counter Point. Centered is Dixon West, fledgling tycoon, as he returns from duty in occupied Japan, scheduled for succession to Carter West, Magazine magnate. The cast includes Mig, whom Dixon loves, war-widowed and an insomniac, with daytime alcoholic inclinations; Oswald Boykin, editor under West, who made his way up despite his wife; Minafee, subordinate turned insubordinate; Miriam, his daughter, who experiments with the color line; Lize Carter Grimm, her dependent husband, her delinquent son, and so on. In this world of people easy to look at, easy to have, Dixon finds himself at a loss. But with his accidental killing of a Negro child, he reverts to form, buys off his conscience, buys up Mig....An ungilding of the lily which still leaves a certain glamorous residue, which will capture the market indicated.