Good Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion: HOLIDAY -- Waldo Frank -- Boni ($2.00). The Negro problem again attacked in fiction, this time from an extremely modern and expressionistic angle. Virginia Hade, haughty Southern beauty, meets John Cloud, young, intelligent Negro, in the woods. They find each other sympathetic. Virginia's family and the other white people of the town misunderstand and set out to lynch Cloud. Virginia might have saved Cloud if she had tried, but she feels too indifferent--nothing seems to matter much any more--so she doesn't, and he is lynched. The form and style of the book should prove of great interest to students of the most recent literary tendencies. THE MYSTERY ROAD--E. Phillips Oppenheim--Little Brown ($2.00). Monte Carlo--mysterious ladies of the highest rank who refuse to reveal their identities--a little French country girl-waif, sheltered by two young British aristocrats--England --Russia--Bolshevik prisons. ... In other words, Mr. Oppenheim's second book of the current year, displays his usual deft talent for spectacular plot and thrilling incident, though a confirmed Oppenheimer sadly misses the customary criminal secret society with its grips and passwords. THE LATE MATTIA PASCAL--Luigi Pirandello--Dutton ($2.50). What is human identity? Your mind? Your body? Your clothes? Your official papers? Mattia Pascal wondered --when an accident gave him a chance to flee from an unpleasant wife, a snarling mother-in-law, unbearable surroundings. The identification of a stray corpse as his own covered his tracks completely by officially removing him from the lists of the living. He started a new life as Adriano Meis--in many respects a more pleasant one, for he made money and fell in love. But circumstance again betrayed him, and Adriano Meis was forced into a pretended suicide--to reappear in his home town as Mattia Pascal, pay visits to his own tombstone, and discover cover his wife had married again. So he accepted the situation with equanimity and settled down to writing the story of his adventures, not sure exactly who he was, under the circumstances, but somewhat consoled by the conclusion that life was a rather incredible business anyway. An amusing, adventurous tour de force, by one of the most prominent writers of Italy.