THE FIESTA AT ANDERSON'S HOUSE

Originally reported for Fall, as follows:- ""A suggestive, sensuous prose, a strong sense of atmosphere, an affectionate identification with the primitive marks this first novel of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the fiesta at Anderson's House which is its focus and climax. Beyond that it is a series of portraits of whites and natives who were to attend the American newspaperman McCormick's fiesta, as McCormick rounds bars, bagnios, homes, to invite his friends. Here is the city with its poverty, its racial and political hostilities; certain of the characters, Rafael the painter, Velasquez the writer, Berman the social worker, etc. And the fiesta the next day reaches its height in the midst of a hurricane, ends in orgiastic revelry and death. There's something of the Tortilla Flat Steinbeck here in a portrait of a pagan people, the abandoned amorality, the casual conviviality; but here it is more sensual, less highhearted. The market seems somewhat limited.