Oar, Gardenia

When the author of a new novel* is heralded as "Captain of the Harvard 1924 Varsity Crew, President of his Junior Class, a member of his Freshman Football Team, President of the Phillips Brooks House, undergraduate President of the famous Hasty Pudding Club and author of last year's show, Ibis of the Harvard Lampoon," one is forced to wonder what time he found, amid all these endeavors, to write it.

The scene is laid in Boston, which Mr. Henry describes as a place with "an air genteel of respectability, which makes you understand that worldly wealth must not be discussed in public, and that on no account must you mention castor oil in the presence of ladies." It purports to be the diary of a middle-aged ex-professor in a boys' school who on the death of his uncle becomes automatically possessed of the latter's Boston house and cheerful $20,000 income, and on his own account, of an engaging ability to play around with flappers and gay young dogs, speak their language, drink their "likker," go dancing, ice-skating and swimming with them.

Nor is that all. The Professor has also a memory--the "recollection of a strange, hot night, and small lips pressed against mine"--all this on an Overland Sleeper, some years agone. This memory goes with him, all through the story, like Stevenson's shadow; but when he meets the cause of it again, it apparently does not prevent him from seeing her married off to somebody else, without the flutter of an eyelash.

The heroine is described as possessing the "composure of a cobra and the face of six or seven madonnas." This generosity in the matter of faces seems somewhat needless, for she could wreak enough havoc with one. Her actions are at times reminiscent of Cytherea. Thus: "Tony [a youth] drew Angela to him, murmuring huskily. Her eyes were rich with invitation and desire. She resisted him, not only with her white arms, but with all her will, crying softly: 'Don't, Tony! Oh don't, dear boy!' But she was a gardenia, soft and lush and pale--not a very suitable flower when it came to resistance. She thought of her age, and of her husband's: Tony was young-- fresh, strong, familiar young arms-- clean, rugged young face--hot misguided youth!--It was too much for her. Sobbing under her breath, and half opening her thin lips, she pressed him against her as fiercely as she had pushed him away."

Author Henry may perhaps be remotely autobiographical when he has his hero start the book by saying: "I thank God that I have always possessed an instinct to jot things down on paper." In any case, while his book is marred by certain immaturities of style and some inexcusably bromidic Latin and French quotations, he himself has managed to jot down a not-too-implausible tale, and some fairly deft characterizations. In between his other activities, he has evidently given some thought to Harvard's race question also, for echoes of that problem appear throughout the story.

*DECEIT--Barklie McKee Henry--Small, Maynard ($2.00).