Midsummer's Child

LINDA SHAWN--Ethel Mannin--Knopf ($2.50).

Christ keep the Hollow Land

All the Summertide;

Still we cannot understand

Where the waters glide.

With William Morris' not notoriously intelligible verses Authoress Mannin captions the three sections of her novel, symbolizes the three phases of her heroine's career--summery childhood, cryptic girlhood, mystic womanhood. Linda's simple story, the details of her family's life on Shawn's farm, make a pretty picture to hang on a cottage wall. Three generations back the Shawns had come from Ireland, rented a piece of land near Flaydering, near the North Sea. Andrew, Linda's father, runs the farm as well as his Celtic irresponsibility allows. His wife Ellen, once a schoolmarm, has no use for irresponsibility, has less & less use for Andrew's ne'er-do-well ways. Her hopes in life she centres in her boys-- Stephen, the surly eldest; David, her favorite. When Linda comes she transfers a few dwindling hopes to her.

She is born on Midsummer's Day, when legend held that Lordly Ones walked the earth to steal earth-children, leave faery changelings in their stead. A strange child from the first--she had golden hair, while all the Shawns were dark--she grows stranger year by year. Shy as a mouse, she yet seems to know what people are thinking of, makes her mother feel a little weird. But for Linda her home, the farm fields and woods are a simple heaven. Only slowly do personal loves come to people it.

Life for Linda becomes fuller, but less heavenly. Her first love Rose, the maid-of-all-work, gets into trouble with some man, goes away. The new maid Hester dislikes Linda, infatuates Stephen, is infatuated herself by David. At an apple-christening, when girls select their lads, Hester openly chooses David, but he turns her down. Jealous, Stephen goes off to Wildwick, on the sea, makes love to Nan, a barmaid there. Linda often goes to Wildwick too. Before she knows it she is in love with Garry, a fisherboy. The outcome of these perturbations is that Stephen marries Nan, David runs off to marry Rose; but Garry is drowned at sea.

Things are going badly for Linda's scolding mother at Shawn's farm. None of the children has done well at school or in marriage. Linda dreams of being a nun. But David comes home again with Rose and happier times follow. One midsummer evening in her 15th year Linda walks out in the apple-orchard, lies on the ground, feels a strange change in her mind, her blood. Shawn's farm is no longer the heart of her world. The orange moon, ris ing over the apple trees, is to set her life's tides from now on. She leaves the orchard a woman.

The Author. Brought up in a strict orthodoxy that disapproved of literature as a career, Authoress Mannin (born 1900) started writing young. Married at 19, she has one daughter, is now separated from her husband. She believes she is the only English authoress who both keeps house and pursues her literary career with out family or marital support. Interested in child psychology, education, Communism, she is a member of the Inde pendent Labor Party, writes regularly for I. L. P.'s New Leader. Books: Pilgrims, Confessions & Impressions, Hunger of the Sea, Sounding Brass, Ragged Banners, Common-sense and the Child.

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