Toro!

MATADOR -- Marguerite Steen -- Little, Brown ($2.50).

To Anglo-Saxons Spanish bullfighting sounds like no sport at all. Spaniards agree that it is no sport, shrug their shoulders over the impossibility of explaining its fascination to a foreigner. For parlor aficionados (fans), Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon (TIME, Sept. 26, 1932) is a compendious if somewhat arty guide. For plainer readers who prefer their foreign stuff wrapped in a good romantic yarn, Matador will do well. Marguerite Steen's cape-work is not so professional as Matador Hemingway's, but she puts on a good show.

Don Jose, known throughout Spain as El Bailarin (the Dancer), because of his tiptoeing grace in the arena, was a retired matador, living in dignified respectability in Granada. He thought he had a right to expect some of his three sons to follow in his own mincing footsteps. But Miguel was born lame, so his only future was the Church. Juan, his father's favorite, was a physical coward. Pepe, the eldest, became a matador, but he lacked his father's touch. Pepe liked the life, however, learned all the dissolute extracurricular tricks. When his father arranged a marriage between him and Pilar, known to be a beauty, thought to be an heiress, Pepe quickly found she was too saintly for his taste. Left a penniless orphan by the death of her scheming grandmother, Pilar was jilted by Pepe. Don Jose took her into his household where both he and Juan fell in love with her. But Pilar's saintliness was too much for them: when Juan realized that she was as impregnable as his father's purpose he ran off with renegade Miguel to be a Communist. Pepe, burnt out by night life, was killed in the ring. Don Jose's carnal love for Pilar cooled into paternal affection. He settled down philosophically in the country with his spiritual daughter, turned slowly from a lusty old rascal into a nice old man.

The Author. Born in Liverpool, in what she calls "a fierce pre-Raphaelite atmosphere," Marguerite Steen was nat urally warped into an, artistic bent. Her family wanted her to be a painter; she was determined to go on the stage. A dissatisfiedschoolteacher in 1914, she wanted to do war work, was again prevented by her family. She saved -L-20, quit her job and knocked on London stage doors, found them all shut. She became a governess, a dancing teacher. Mrs. Patrick Campbell watched her work, offered her a job. Three years of touring cured her. She worked in a London sandwich bar, taught elocution, began to write. Now a full-fledged author, she has written more than a dozen books, has lectured widely in the U. S. Matador (with Years Are So Long) is the July choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

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