FAR, FAR FROM HOME

Back to My Sister Eileen in tone, this covers a stay in Brussels from its high to low comedy and sentiment. The decision to become PDA (permanently domiciled abroad), the error that led them to Brussels, the innocence that led to illegality (in the case of war bonds), to language shock (on the part of both children and parents), to domestic misunderstanding -- are only the beginning. For the servants impose new ways -- visiting cemeteries, transposing Thanksgiving and Christmas to the Continent -- as do the children, with the mystifying""proof by nine""and their introduction of Americanisms; they are successful in providing their own brand of birthday parties and means of communication in French; and the sprouting in Brussels has its repercussions when they move to London and back to America. Richard and Ruth, Eileen, Patrick and Tom are frisky traveling companions and their mishaps with alien cultures give a vely look at a gaspingly new Gallic world. For her followers of a decade or two, and the newcomers who may have caught glimpses of this in Holyday.