LUCIFER IN PINE LAKE

The Atlantic prize winner of two years back (Dusk at the Grove) has chosen a college town as setting for a modern story of a young instructor, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and apparently a permanent adolescent, emotionally, wholly lacking in sense of responsibility, normal ties of affection, loyalty, chivalry, common decency. He betrays everyone, his parents, his mistress, his wife -- and doss it with a serene indifference to his own shortcomings. The death of his infant son, the escape of his wife, dulled to apathy by his indifference, lack of understanding and unfaithfulness -- harm only his self-love. Even her death seems unlikely to jar him into an adult point of view. It is a more or less inconclusive picture of an inadequate, immature man, and a biting picture of the pettiness of a mid-western university town, with the minor characters more real than the major. Not as convincing a picture -- humanly speaking -- as his prize winning novel, but -- for the average reader, easy reading.