PERSISTENT FACES

Companion volume to The Lonely Ones, which since publication in '42 has been reprinted 12 times. This has more bite — more cynicism — but Steig is almost never cruel, which he might so easily be in these X-rays of humanities, oddities encountered in the daily round. Each grotesque sketch conveys an impression, sometimes swiftly caught, sometimes symbolic, of a type, a quirk, a mood. Here's a book for those who are bothered by too much text. You don't have to read this.