No Death
The Last Enemy. By Iris Barry. (Bobbs Merrill. $2.50.), The Last Enemy is a novel of distinction for two reasons : the theme around which it is written is both original and fecund ; and the people with whom it deals are so ordinary as to be remarkable.
Have any of us ever thought what a terrible thing it would be if we were never to die ? It was this thought which disturbed the waking and sleeping hours of the people living in the South of England during those days when no deaths were reported in that area. Headlines read, " Amaiin Decrease in Mortality " : " Unusual Degree of Vitality "• all conversations turned inevitably to the subject of death ; suicides and murders increased at an alarming rate ; th idea of death became an obsession until—but the reade must find out for himself how the weight of this unbearable burden of perpetual life was lifted.
Although Miss Iris Barry, with whose writings readers of the Spectator are familiar, has not worked out her exception* brilliant idea as fully and as powerfully as she might ha's. done, The Last Enemy is a book which cannot fail to grip the reader. It seems odd and a' little sad that Miss Barry's first novel should have been first published in America.
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