YOUNG MAN OF CARACAS

Could have been sub titled My Father was a Venezuelan General and it turns out to be an infectious recapturing of the author's youth, spent pendulum-like between his mother's home and family in Boston, and the Ybarra homes in Caracas. Grandfather Russell was U. S. Minister to Venezuela in 1874, and his daughter married a young, fairy Venan. T. R. Ybarra, foreign correspondent and radio commentator is the son and he has made an engaging picture of the Latin-Boston marriage, of his father's excursions when out of favor with his own country, of the power and the glory when he was able to return, of the Cockney nurse and her appeal for the Venezuelans, of coffee plantation life, various sorts of schooling, the excitement of revolutions, family life, relatives of both climes, and the hilarious run-ins of father and mother. Good fun-good reading- should be a ""natural"", with its extraordinary background, attractive parents, good-humered easy style, and the recreation of South American life at the turn of the century.