Cheekbone Rhythm

LOVE STORY (303 pp.) -- Rufh McKenney--Harcourf, Brace ($3).

Once upon a time a writer's autobiography was his swan song. But these days authors are in such a hurry to chronicle themselves that the average autobiography sounds more like the first cuckoo in spring. If the trend keeps up, it will soon be only a very old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud who will begin his career without first completing his Life.

Autobiographer Ruth McKenney has been at it ever since she was 26, when

My Sister Eileen (TIME, July 25, 1938) sent her flying into bestselling glory. In The McKenneys Carry On, Lifer McKenney pursued herself and her inseparable sister a stage farther; now, in Love Story, her large public will have a chance to watch her turn the mattress of her twelve-year-old marriage bed.

Green Light from Reno. In 1937, when love bloomed, he, Michael Conway, an editor of the now defunct New Masses, was writing a book on U.S. labor leaders. She, Ruth McKenney, was writing a history of the Ohio rubber workers. The two met on a green hillside near New Milford, Conn, to exchange data.

One eyeful of earnest, sinewy Mike erased all thought of class struggle from the McKenney heart. "Shy for the first time since I ran away from home at the age of 14," she mumbled "Hello." "His wife's in Reno, divorcing him," boomed the frank pal who accompanied Mike. "I don't brood [about it]," Mike chipped in sharply. "My wife and I have been separated for years."

Eleven days later Miss McKenney became the second Mrs. Michael Lyman-- "Conway" proving to be only a penname adopted by radical Mike out of deference to his wealthy family ("A scion, eh?" whistled Sister Eileen: "Remind me to look twice at the next New Masses editor we rope in").* The happy couple settled down in Greenwich Village, where life would have been sheer heaven if only the first Mrs. Lyman, who was "tall, willowy and beautiful" and possessed "seven million dollars, strictly in government bonds," hadn't given vent to the "strong streak of dog-in-the-manger in her character" by persistently dropping in "for a good cry."

Honest Mike. Ruth and Mike made a fine team, especially when it came to crusading for the Communist Party. "We had our hands full," says Author McKenney, whose sense of humor is not deep, "with the arms embargo, Prime Minister Chamberlain, the Anti-Lynch bill, and related problems." But now, at 38, she cannot but smile as she recalls some of the differences that stood between her and her husband in those youthful days, e.g., his conviction (the result of his gentle upbringing) that one should always pay one's bills. "I was truly shocked when Mike informed me . . . that cheating tradesmen was dishonest"; and she barked at him reproachfully: "You're a fine editor of the New Masses!"

But his attitude must have touched some hidden, bourgeoise chord in her heart, for when her scrupulous scion lay asleep she was forever "feasting loving wifely eyes on his profile" and reflecting: "How gentle his face . . . against the bedclothes. How distinguished the curve of his high cheekbone!"

Sister Ruth skips quickly over the political blush that came into her cheekbones and Mike's in 1946, when the Communist Party publicly booted them out for "left deviationism." Despite their poignant cries of distress, the party kept the door locked, Author McKenney and her husband in outer darkness. Says she now: "A dismal political row . . . The whole thing was a mistake."

Temporary Halt. "Authors are never shy," observes Author McKenney (of other authors), "not even about details which leave the reader ashy-hued." But fortunately, her Love Story is sufficiently veneered with shyness to keep the apples in the reader's high cheekbones: though it is always a bit vulgar, it is never coarse. It takes the reader through a tragicomic record of Lyman ups & downs, including the death of Sister Eileen in an automobile accident, and draws to a close just before the Lymans and their three children take off for Europe.

The present Lyman home is London,

-Readers who look twice will find that in real life Scion Mike is neither Lyman nor Conway. Both pseudonyms conceal San Francisco-born Richard Bransten, better known to New Masses readers as "Bruce Minton."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.