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THE CRADLE BUILDER by Walter Schoenstedt

THE CRADLE BUILDER

By

Pub Date: Jan. 8th, 1939
Publisher: Farrar & Rinehart

In Praise of Life had the power of an authentic record, with the weakness of the attempt to turn it into fiction. This story, which takes up Peter's life in America, his attempts at readjustment, at putting behind him the insecurity and terror of his youth in Nazi Germany, and his marriage, somehow lacks the poignancy and force of his earlier work. Perhaps there is too little of himself, too much of an attempt to show German-Americans at cross purposes, uncertain of the role they are playing. It hasn't been done before, and there is definitely a place for a book on this theme, but this doesn't accomplish what it seems to set out to do, though it has points of interest.