The Ordeal of Mr. Banks

FATHER OF THE BRIDE (244 pp.)--Edward Streeter, illustrated by Gluyas Williams-- ^ Simon & Schuster ($2.50).

It appears that a civilization, like any other living thing in evolution, retains the shrunken vestiges of once-vital organs which no longer serve much real purpose, and only cause trouble if they try to. Take for example, in 20th Century U.S. civilization, the father of a bride. Take specifically Mr. Stanley Banks of 24 Maple Drive, Fairview Manor, a vestigial organ in a perfect state of preservation.

Mr. Banks, and how he became a remnant of his former self during the months just before his daughter's marriage, is the subject of the newest book by Edward Streeter, Manhattan banker and author of such occasional studies of U.S. types as Dere Mable (the World War I doughboy) and Daily Except Sundays (the harassed commuter). Father is one of the best of the Streeter studies: a simple-sentence, large-print piece of summer reading, as easy to absorb as sunshine.

Hoarse Talk. The withering-away of Stanley Banks began the moment his daughter Kay told him that she was engaged. " 'Well, to begin with,' he gasped a little hysterically, 'who the hell is this Buckley anyway, and where the hell does he come from--and who does he think is going to support him? If it's me he's got another guess coming. And who in God's name--'

"And so it was that . . . later, Mr. Banks came out from town on the three-fifty-seven, composing an informal and, he hoped, dryly humorous little speech. It was to be about Kay as a little girl, Kay growing up and finally, in a big surprise climax, Kay announcing her engagement." But at Kay's engagement party, Mr. Banks never got to make his speech: he spent most of the party in the pantry, slopping together old-fashioneds at break-glass speed.

When the guest list began to press 300, Mr. Banks could see the handwriting on his bankbook. He took his daughter aside, said hoarsely: "I'll give you and Buckley fifteen hundred dollars to elope." She thought he was kidding.

Chaste Miracle. After that, Stanley Banks must have withered fast, because his family scarcely noticed him at all for the next few months. He was always somewhere around, though--in his wife's way, under the florist's feet, beneath the caterer's contempt--with his hand in his wallet and his heart in his mouth.

By the day of the wedding he was so far reduced that he fitted satisfactorily a cutaway that he had bought 20 years before; so confused that he started the wedding march on the wrong foot; and so dazed that he became hypnotized by the expression of the minister's nostrils and muffed his only line in the service. He spent part of the reception chasing stray dogs out of the house, and unlocking bumpers and directing traffic in the improvised parking lot behind the house.

When it was all over, Stanley Blanks slogged wearily upstairs through the confetti; there, Mr. Streeter suggests, he may have got a saving brace on himself. For in the bathroom wash basin, chaste as a bride, stood the last, miraculously intact bottle of champagne.

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