ROBBINS, CLARENCE AARON (TOD ROBBINS). Silent, white and beautiful; and other stories. *$1.90 (3c) Boni & Liveright
Short stories by an author who makes a specialty of the gruesome. Contents: Silent, white and beautiful; Who wants a green bottle? Wild Wullie, the waster; For art’s sake. There is a preface by Robert H. Davis.
“If these grotesque and morbid tales were just a bit better, they might even be great! But failing of greatness, they are so horrible as to be occasionally funny.”
− + Bookm 52:550 F ’21 100w
“The horror of the truth in daily life is greater than the horror Mr Robbins seeks in his imaginative and improbable wanderings among murderers and spirits.” R. D. W.
− Boston Transcript p8 Ja 29 ’21 350w
“Genuine horror requires a certain inner logic, a subtle plausibility not discoverable in these stories.” L. B.
− Freeman 2:358 D 22 ’20 170w
“There is no doubt that he has an eerie fancy, great fertility of invention, and not a little psychological insight. But he is unequal to the point of eccentricity. Two of his four narratives, ‘Wild Wullie, the waster,’ and ‘Who wants a green bottle,’ are simply inept. ‘Silent, white and beautiful,’ on the other hand, has an original and strangely vivid central idea.”