OTHER NovEr.s.—The Outsider. By Maurice Samuel. (Con- stable. 7s. 6d.
net. )— A seemingly realistic picture of Bohemian life in the Paris of 1918 and after. A demobilized American soldier chooses to embark upon a losing struggle for existence in the underworld of that brilliant city rather than return to the narrow respectability of his home in the Middle West. The tragic story of his gradual descent into moral and material penury is remarkably well told and gives a strong, if lamentable, impression that the author does no more than paint things as they are.—A Son of the Middle Border. By Hamlin Garland. (The Bodley Head. 7s. 6d. net.)—There is little doubt that English readers will endorse the verdict of the American public in regard to Mr. Garland's wholly delightful chronicle of thirty years in the life of a pioneering family in Western America. The tale is taken up at the father's return from the war in '64 and is dropped dead when " settling " days were over for the old people and great cities had claimed the rising generation. It is a straightforward, intimate, and inspiring story, and for readers on this side of the Atlantic it will have also that unnameable allure—born partly of admiration and partly of fear—which always attends stories of adventure in the unknown.—The Wings of Time. By Elizabeth Newport Hepburn. (Nash and Grayson. 7s. 6d. net.)— Everything about this book is typical. It is, for instance, an American novel, and the heroine is called Sally. And, as it is in small things, so it is also in greater. But to say that a novel is typical is not to say for a moment that it is necessarily stereotyped or dull. On the contrary, however disconcerting such conformity may be to the critic on the look-out for a salient to approach, it has in this case, at least, no power to spoil an altogether attractive and readable story.
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