Review
A second showing by the author of last spring's critical success, The Wrong Set, this new collection of short pieces again moves through some shabby, seedy if conventional circles, extracts from briefly circumscribed situations an irony which is not without a tragic awareness. There is, in Rex Imperator, a man whose dependent relatives drive him to a cruelty which finds its revengeful release; in the title story, the sad exposure of two sentimental socialists of the past through the eyes of some young moderns; the spinster who is haunted by an imaginary, sickly, squalid child- who submits to spiritists and the analyst's couch before her final retreat into madness; the youngster who knows he is unwanted; the servitude of a family to an old servant; etc. etc. These scenes, which are needle-sharp in their awareness of recognized if unadmissible realities, cast their social reflection in addition to the personal response they provoke, and will draw a discriminating audience. (Kirkus Reviews)
