+ Springf’d Republican p8a Ap 4 ’20 350w
“The book will stand as a monument to a man of many talents. Southard the scholar would not object to the statement that his book is as much a part of history as of medicine.” A. Myerson, M. D.
+ Survey 44:252 My 15 ’20 190w
SPADONI, ADRIANA. Swing of the pendulum. *$1.90 (1c) Boni & Liveright
20–774
Opening in San Francisco and ending in New York, this long novel tells the story of a woman’s life from youth to the beginning of middle age. The swing of the pendulum carries her from an unfortunate early marriage thru a passionate love affair with a man who is already bound by wife and child, to a safe and settled union based on mutual regard and need. Jean Norris graduates from the University of California, turns her back on teaching as a profession, enters library work, marries Franklin Herrick, follows Journalism, discovers the settlement movement, comes to New York as a social worker, plunges into civic reform, loves and loses Gregory Allen, forsakes her work to return to San Francisco, comes back and takes it up again, and after many emotional reactions marries her co-worker, Jerome Stuart.
“There is a good deal of fine characterization in this book; the dialogue is extraordinarily natural. But the prevailing atmosphere is sultry with sex; the middle-aged reader, at least, may find the performance as a whole both strained and wearisome.” H. W. Boynton
+ − Bookm 51:343 My ’20 240w
“This novel cannot be commended as a work of art. The story does not grip, several of its chapters are so episodic that they might be suppressed without loss, and the male characters are not men, but marionettes.”