Boasting

THE MAN WHO HAD EVERYTHING--Louis Bromfield--Harper ($2).

Louis Bromfield, who once excited both critics and readers by his precocious promise and then reneged by turning out thin stuff, last fortnight produced a story that was a bit too thick. Even to readers who know little or nothing about Author Bromfield's own career, The Man Who Had Everything will sound suspiciously like boasting. Not an autobiographical novel, it presents some striking similarities between its hero and its author. Even Bromfield enthusiasts may be shocked at this expression of his high opinion of himself, but readers who have begun to suspect that he is only a literary climber will find their suspicions hardening into certainty.

Tom had everything. A brilliantly successful playwright, and still in his middle thirties, he had plenty of money, a decorative wife, an adoring actress-mistress. When he gave a party he had the satisfaction of knowing that nowhere in the world was there a collection of smarter, more successful people. He was tall and well-built. No one could withstand his famous charm. He was the top, and he knew it. But do you suppose Tom was happy? Not a bit of it. Something was lacking. What that something was, Tom was not quite smart enough to figure out. But he felt the need of a change, and decided to get away from it all, moisten the lips and start afresh.

He broke with his mistress, took his wife and family abroad on a slow and unfashionable boat, settled them in the French countryside, in a house that had sentimental associations for him. But his wife, poor wretch, didn't like it; his sons didn't like their English school. She took them home and got a divorce. Meantime Tom's mistress was going haywire and ruining a good chance in Hollywood because he had cast her off. Tom, feeling pretty much put upon by these events, got all broody and drunk. Luckily for Tom's peace of mind and Author Bromfield's cinemarty ending, the girl who had given his house its sentimental associations appeared at this point--buxom and widowed now, but bristling with Gallic sense. She gave Tom a good talking to, sent him back to the U.S. to marry his long-suffering mistress.

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