The skill of the
book is proved by the increasing anxiety, and even agitation, with which
one awaits the moment that shall fulfil the title. It comes, bringing with
it that almost intolerable tragedy of the soul, the black loneliness that
waits upon insincerity. Then poor deluded _Zella_, seeing herself, sees
also the fate that eventually befalls those who have deliberately falsified
the signals by which alone one human heart can speak to and assist another.
That is all the plot of the story, told with remarkable insight and a care
that is both sympathetic and wholly unsparing. I am mistaken if you will
not find it one of the most absorbing within recent experience. But I am
not saying that it may not leave you just a little uncomfortable.
* * * * *
BOYD CABLE is already one of the prose Laureates of the War, having earned
his wreath by _Between the Lines_ and _Action Front_. He now proves that he
is still entitled to it by _Grapes of Wrath_ (SMITH, ELDER). The two former
books gave us detached articles all relating to the one great subject. The
present book is a continuous story, the episodes of which are held together
by the deeds and characters of a quartette of friends, _Larry Arundel_,
_Billy Simson_, _Pug Sneath_, and the noble and adventurous American,
_Kentucky Lee_, who had enlisted in our Army to prove that "too proud to
fight" was a phrase which did not agree with the traditions of an old
Kentucky family.
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