TRIAL BALANCE

March made his reputation with an outstanding novel of World War I- Company K. He followed this with a grim story of deformity and crime- sound psychological portraiture- The Tallons. Then came a number of volumes of short stories,-the last one, Some Like Them Short, in 1939, proved once again a certain leashed power, spare, blunt, effective. This collection overlaps the others- containing his own choice of 55 stories written between 1-1944, published in magazines of assured literary distinction. The emphasis is largely on psychological stories- I'd hoped he'd tapped the rich vein of understanding evidenced in Company K for some stories about this war -- but his war stories, if you could call them that, are written in rather nostalgic vein. The civilian stories have more vitality. Highly individual, he is a writer who attracts some-repels others- but is never negligible.