20–11071
In various ways the characters of this story are interested in the life hereafter and in communication with the dead; and the reactions on the living, when the quest becomes too ardent, constitute its moral. A bereaved mother, one of whose sons has been killed in the war, pins all her faith to automatic writing, in the hope of getting a message from him. Her relations with her husband become strained, her nerves threaten to give way. Her secretary, who practices the writing, has through it so lost her grip on the higher potentialities of life, that she no longer discriminates between genuine and fraudulent practices. A scientist has taken the matter up from the scientific side and from seeking communication with his dead wife has been led deeper and deeper into his investigations, and becomes almost crazed and totally irresponsible. For love of him his daughter surrounds herself with a fabric of lies from which only the love of an unusual, divining young man and her father’s death, extricate her. For the bereaved mother and her family the situation is saved by the penetrating wisdom of an old woman.
“Written with characteristic deftness and charm.”
+ Booklist 17:30 O ’20
“In ‘The wind between the worlds’ Miss Brown has, despite the intricacy of her theme, sacrificed neither her story to her problem, nor her problem to her story. Devotees of the cult doubtless will not approve of it, for its hints at fraud will seem to them to be unjust, and it suggests little sympathy on the part of the novelist with the cause they have so near at heart. To others, however, it will appear as a sensible and skilfully imaginative exposition of a vital subject.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 Jl 21 ’20 1400w Cleveland p105 D ’20 60w Lit D p110 N 6 ’20 2700w
“If one can forget the shoddiness of the material there are several virtues that might be pointed out. The book will undoubtedly please disciples of the formula school of fiction.” H. S. G.
+ − New Repub 25:210 Ja 12 ’21 340w
“The ‘plot portion’ of the story is the weakest part of it. There are times when it seems manufactured. But the character drawing is admirable. That the novel is admirably written and the atmosphere of Boston, where the scene is laid, excellently reproduced, of course goes without saying.” L. M. Field