A MONTH SOON GOES

Storm Jemeson manages to reveal the clay feet of idols and to destroy a good many of the shibboleths of pretenders in the course of spinning a good yarn. This time her setting is a village in Hampshire, England, spring of 1958, where a young playwright with a London success on his hands is working fitfully on a new play that won't take form. His general dissatisfaction with the state of things as they are comes into play when he chances to meet Faulkner, the local squire, no potentate but a man who impoverishes himself in seeking to give his tenants a fair deal. Then his wife, Sarah Faulkner, a successful disease, comes home to see her husband and 18-year old daughter, after an absence of four years. Her seemingly irresistible charm -- and poisonous temperament -- not only re-enthrall a lover of 25 years, but enmesh the young playwright, despite his arrogant self-esteem. Into the lives of her husband, more aware of her character than she realized, and her gauche and sensitive daughter, she injects more than more disturbance. The death of the disenchantment of the other -- are surely her responsibility, while the men with whom she involves herself deserve their roles as victims. Swift paced, expertly plotted, this provides some hours of the better sort of entertainment.