DAWN BREAKS THE HEART

This has, with some justification, been compared to the work of Thomas Wolfe. It is a confessional in the form of a novel, retracing with great intensity and great intimacy all the fevers, the agonies, humiliations and gropings of a sensitive young introvert's maturing. It has none of the diffuseness of Wolfe, but it has its turbulence, its savage self-proving. This is the story of Philip Bentham, his dissonant relationships at home and at school, the first recognition of sex in all its recognition of sex in all its curiosity and shame and disgust; insecurity and the intellectual affectations he assumes to offset it; then his meeting with Vivien Ashley, and an overnight marriage. Viven is part Lesbian, with resultant torment and perversity and contradiction in their marriage. One year of Bohemian activities -- outbursts of hatred and frustration and lust -- and then it founders. Like other books of its kind, its force derives from its sincerity, its fervor.