Middle-Aged Passion

THE END OF DESIRE--Robert Herrick --Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50). On the jacket of The End of Desire Publishers Farrar & Rinehart have blurbed the rather rhetorical question: "Whence arises the sudden passion of a Man for a Woman?" You may be surprised to discover that this is a quotation from the late great Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche himself. But you will be more surprised that it takes Author Herrick's hero 371 pages to find the answer. Psychiatrist Redfield met Abnormal-Psychology Expert Massey at a murder trial. Redfield was a man; Massey a woman; both were middle-aged (in fact, grandparents). They fell in love: or at least Redfield thought they did, for Dr. Serena Massey became Dr. Redfield's mistress. Redfield's wife was dead; so was Serena's husband, but Serena would not marry again because she said she wanted to keep her independence. But they went off on scientific investigations together and had a high old time by the way. From Serena's children (a not very attractive crowd), from Serena herself. Redfield gradually came to the terrible conclusion that she was just a scheming, selfish, salacious old wench. The End of Desire, Author Herrick's 23rd pedestrian book, is serious, well-meant, may point out to middle-aged adolescents some pitfalls of the dangerous age but will not advance the cause of U. S. letters very much.

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