REMEMBERING LAUGHTER

The $2,500 Prize Novelette, and a memorable award, in discovering a new writer of real merit, and giving impetus to a shorter form of novel writing which has proved its value in such gems as Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Of Mice and Men. There is the tempo and the spirit of Ethan Frome in story and telling; the setting is the corn belt of Iowa. Simply told, the story reveals the tragedy behind the life of two sisters, the husband of the elder, and the youth, who eventually discovers that his "uncle" is in fact his father, and his one link with normal life and "remembered laughter." A tragic story, implicit with far more than the bare outlines reveal.