“The scenes are described with the ability which ‘The Querrils’ showed Mr Aumonier to possess; but the book is less carefully constructed, and the sense of incomplete finality which marred the effect of the earlier novel in this one is more obtrusive. Mr Aumonier studies situations rather than characters, and in contriving a situation with a climax that is dramatic but not ‘stagey’ he has a particular skill. At the same time, the book has a tendency to fall into vaguely connected episodes, while the characters approximate too closely to collections of impersonal attributes.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p351 Je 3 ’20 430w
AUSTIN, MARY (HUNTER) (MRS STAFFORD W. AUSTIN). No. 26 Jayne street. *$2 (2½c) Houghton
20–9713
The action of the story takes place in the year after America’s entrance into the war. Neith Schuyler, the heroine, has lived abroad with an invalid father for a number of years, and following his death has done relief work in France. She returns home hoping to learn to understand America. To come nearer to the problem she leaves the luxurious home of her two great aunts and takes a modest apartment on Jayne street, just off Washington square. Here she comes into contact with many shades of radical opinion and contrasts it with the “capitalistic” attitude of her own family and friends. Two men fall in love with Neith, Eustace Bittenhouse, an aviator, and Adam Frear, a labor leader. She becomes engaged to Adam and then learns that there has been another woman in his life, Rose Matlock, one of the radical group. The attitude of the two women, who represent the new feminism, puzzles Adam and he leaves for Russia. Eustace is killed in France and Neith is left to grope her way into the future alone.
“Rather obscure and vague in some places, it will not have many readers.”
+ − Booklist 16:345 Jl ’20
“Both in subject and in treatment, Mrs Austin’s work discloses its kinship to the social novel of Wells.”
+ Dial 69:432 O ’20 60w