Bedtime Stories

THE WIND OF COMPLICATION-- Susan Ertz--Appleton ($2). Once upon a time one furnished one's overnight guest with fiddlers to lull him to sleep. Now it is considered sufficient if guest-rooms contain a reachable reading-in-bed-lamp and, better than a novel, a book of short stories. The author of Madame Claire and After Noon now supplies a collection to which no hostess need hesitate to call attention before saying at the door, "Well, goodnight."

Miss Ertz will send people off to sleep (but not before they firmly decide to go) with a sense of emotional security and superiority. She is a knowing lady and very cool. Scarcely anyone can handle emotional characters with her legerity and yet not be trifling. Two of her lovely ladies, for example, tour France with a charming philanderer. They find him out in time to save their friendship and in a manner that saves their self-respect. Yet just before the climax, tragedy impends. In another story, the mother of a grown dolt launches him on a literary career by publishing her own work under his name. The son's character does not change, but the mother is much happier. Again: A dullish Mr. Mellish, given to heroine-worship, is taught his wife's heroism. An over-intense beauty kills two husbands with her love and ambition for them. . . . The normal living pitch implied by Miss Ertz reminds one of Bertrand Russell's "good life." But just to show what she can imagine, a horror story is also included, blacker than bats.