Half-Breed

CALL HER SAVAGE--Tiffany Thayer-- Kendall ($2.50).

If you want to read a good imitation of a serious novel, try this one. It has many earmarks of what passes for worth; a pioneer panorama, noble savages, slick Manhattanites and Chicagoans, "frankness," a (pseudo) devil-may-care style. Author Tiffany Thayer knows how to butter his bread, knows many a reader will put up with oleomargarine if it is spread thick enough.

Nasa was the bastardette of an educated Indian who was swept off his moccasins by the wife of a successful rancher. She had fed herself to the teeth on her husband's thin-lipped parochial ambition. The Indian, being noble, shot himself next day. Nasa was born and grew up thinking little about her parentage, feeling much about herself. Her legal father prospered in railroads, enjoyed giving her every advantage. But even as a schoolgirl Nasa had a tendency to scratch and bite, see red instead of rosy. When she married, too young, it was the wrong man: a gambler, a roue, diseased. To her family Nasa put up a falsetto front, but when her husband divorced her about the time the U. S. declared war on Germany, she went to Manhattan, amused herself with many a departing soldier, gob and leatherneck. She further amused herself by sending her ex-husband a memento of each occasion. When her mother began to die, Nasa went home. As you leave her she has not taken on anybody new, but there is someone in the offing.

The Significance. Call Her Savage is a good example of an unamazing third-rate book backed by amazing and first-rate ballyhoo. Author Thayer's first published book, Thirteen Men (TIME, July 14, 1930), was publicized into the best-seller class, drew (according to Publisher Kendall) 700,000 words in reviews.

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