Dogged Honesty

LOVE IN WINTER--Storm Jameson-- Knopf ($2.50).

Though not announced as such. Love in Winter is the second installment of Author Jameson's big novel-in-progress. whose first volume was Company Parade (TIME, May 21). In these books Author Jameson is writing the personal history of her day. Though her version is never likely to be widely popular, her readers know by this time that she does not lie to them, however uncomfortably, even drearily, she sometimes talks. Her ambition is prosaic but candid: "There is only one book worth writing--not to cheat, but to record every item in the tale of mistakes, joys. cruelties, and simple meannesses that make up our dealings one with others, then to write down the total, hand it in. and clear off without making a fuss."

Love in Winter is prefaced by the conventional disclaimer that its characters and events are fictitious, but readers will not need both eyes to see autobiographical likenesses in Hervey, the book's central character, may catch suggestions of other actual people (notably Novelist John Boynton Priestley). Love in Winter carries on the careers of the characters introduced in Company Parade, but the central narrative tells of Hervey's love affair with her cousin. Nicholas Roxby. Both are married--Hervey to a no-account weakling who has failed her again & again, is now idling at Oxford; Nicholas to a spoiled wife from whom he is separated. Like many of his generation. Nicholas has been nearly used up by the War; Hervey is much the stronger of the two. While Nicholas sinks what is left of his money and energy in an antique-furniture shop. Hervey plods along at her jobs of literary secretary and novelist, somehow finds time and heart as well to be mother, friend and lover. The book ends with the preliminary divorce proceedings that will set Hervey and Nicholas free to marry. Long before this she knows that Nicholas can never make her happy; life has taught her to be a realist, and he is still a dreamer. But her stubborn woman's honesty will not let her deny her tragic love.

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