Straight Reporter

THE DOCTOR'S SON--John O'Hara-- Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

The Irish seem a sentimental race, but they are hard underneath. Author O'Hara is rapidly qualifying himself for hard-boiled champion of the year. As straight a reporter of U. S. dialect as the late great Ring Lardner and straighter than Hemingway, he writes without bitterness, without pity. The effect is unpleasant but cruelly true to U. S. life. His first novel, Appointment in Samarra (TIME, Aug. 20), offended many a reader, excited many a critic. This collection of sketches and short stories will raise the same echo.

Author O'Hara's subjects are as topical and immediate as newspaper stories: an influenza epidemic in a Pennsylvania mining district; a bus-girl in a Coffee Pot figuring up her budget; a smalltime crook getting the double-cross from his cronies. Almost without exception his characters are knaves, fools, or a mixture of both. But Author O'Hara edits his copy so cannily that his reports of their knavish or foolish goings-on are arresting.

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