Novel in Verse

HOXSIE SELLS HIS ACRES--Christopher La Farge--Coward-McCann ($2).

Latest member of the artistic La Farge family to make his literary bow is Christopher, in a 224-page poem which he modestly calls "an American novel in verse." A patriotic poem, Hoxsie Sells His Acres sings not of arms and men but of Rhode Island land-lovers. A nostalgic tribute to a land that has seen its best days, it has fluency and charm, tells its low-keyed story with sentimental conviction. Walter Hoxsie's farm on the Rhode Island shore had been in his family for generations. He liked his life there, especially when his cousin Sarah came to live with him after his mother died, and never considered living anywhere else. But Hoxsie was poor, and the land yielded less & less every year. When a Providence real estate company made him a good offer for his land Hoxsie thought he might as well take it. Asa Congdon. urged by his go-ahead wife, advised Hoxsie to sell, hoped that the real estate company would come to him next. Most of the old inhabitants took it quietly, but the Herendenes, city folks with summer places near Hoxsie's, were frantic at the idea of letting in a cheap development, tried to get their friends together and raise money to buy the Hoxsie place themselves. Perry, Herendene's best friend and neighbor, had the money to spare, but he was having a love affair with Herendene's wife, which complicated matters. Upshot was that Hoxsie sold to the Providence company and Perry made a discretionary retreat to Europe. Mary Herendene's husband discovered a revealing billet doux from her lover. Hoxsie gave up hopeless farming and got the fishing boat he had pined for, but he hardly liked the sight of the cheap new houses springing up in his old fields. No one was very happy. Even 224 pages of doggerel would be an achievement, and Hoxsie Sells His Acres is often far from doggerel. But it ranks higher as a novel than as a poem. In his overanxiety to avoid monotony Author La Farge frequently varies the metre, not always with happy effect. His easy narrative blank verse, with no straining after mighty lines, needs no such purplish patching. Close to prose, his verse is acclimatized to the salty New England accent: "Gracious to dearie me!" cried old Mrs. Slocum, "Confound this floor, by guy, I most to fell." "What's the matter, Ma?" called a voice from the darkness. "Mighty near bust my toe off's what's the matter. Told that boy a dozen times if I told him Once that he'd ought to nail that board, in place. . . ." The Author. Elder brother of Author Oliver La Farge (Laughing Boy, Sparks Fly Upward), son of Architect Christopher Grant La Farge, grandson of Painter John La Farge, Christopher ("Kipper") Grant La Farge, 37, is as versatile as the rest of his family. Though his vocation is architecture (he works in his father's office) he has numerous arty hobbies, such as painting in water color, designing sets for the Comedy Club, costumes for eunuchs. His real passion is the stage. Nearsighted, gangling, emaciated, married, he looks like a composite of an American Indian, Aldous Huxley, King

Gustav of Sweden.

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