Medium Rare

WELCOME TO THE CITY--Irwin Shaw--Random House ($2).

One of the most gifted U.S. short-story writers, Irwin Shaw is also one of the most successful. All but one of the 20 stories in this volume are collected from The New Yorker, Story, Harper's Bazaar and other magazines. Some of the best:

>The Eighty-Yard Run is a kindly study of the bewildered Young Republican of the early '30s with perceptive notes on one type of hopeless marriage.

> In Main Currents of American Thought a young radio hack who wants to do serious work trembles in a familiar trap--the support of his limp, whining family.

>In The Dry Rock, the most nearly immaculate story in the book, a decent young man betrays all human decency under wifely pressure, in his responsibility as witness of a street fight between a gangster and a proud little taxi driver.

>In Free Conscience, Void of Offence some smooth-motored Yale '12 classmates and their wives, softly convivial at a well-kempt bar, drink toasts to Chamberlain's success at Munich.

Irwin Shaw's material is fresh, and he handles it with rich understanding and superb technique--up to a point. Then he lays it on too thick or too pat. Perhaps his professionalism is to blame. Perhaps the author of Bury The Dead is more naturally a playwright than a storyteller. Tricks of overemphasis, which get by on stage, look as uneasy in print as theatrical make-up does in a living room.

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