27 AUGUST 1921, Page 24

Zell. By Henry G. Aikman. (Jonathan Cape. 8s. 6d.)— Zell

is published as a specimen of what the publisher describes as

The New American Literary Movement," and certainly there is a very arresting realism about this story of American lower middle-class life. The story of the unsuccessful marriage of Avery Zell, the hero, is given with photographic accuracy, and tho mixture of half-motives which lead to it is ably analysed. The way in which his child keeps him true to his wife and then becomes the vehicle of his renewed outlook on life is, though not original, very well described.