THE CAPTAIN'S WIFE

This is the life portrait of Sylvia Russell, daughter of Mary Hervey, and the author swings back to the tenor of her earlier books. In a sober but extremely competent manner, Storm Jameson contributes a fine piece of characterization. Sylvia, unconsciouslessly held by the measuring rod set by her mother -- and having failed to fulfill any part of the promise her girlhood anticipated, determines to recapture it all through her children. Contemptuous, resentful, dominating and domineering, she pushes her boorish, pathetic sea-captain husband aside, claiming her children entirely. Unaware, she repeats the pattern set by her mother, a possessiveness which in its violence scars the lives of Hervey, the girl, and Jake, the boy. A somewhat repellent but holding study of power and frustration, handled with great psychological insight. For women primarily.