F. O. B. Ferber

THEY BROUGHT THEIR WOMEN--Edna Ferber--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). Expert machinist of popular-priced fiction, Edna Ferber has long turned out best-selling goods in three different models: novels, short stories and, with collaborators, plays. Like all carefully machined products for mass consumption, Edna Ferber's stories are as competently finished, as conservatively up-to-date, as shiny with neat paintwork and chromium fittings, as unindividual as next year's family model, f. o. b. Detroit.

But styles in short stories are changing. Yesterday's vogue, "the story with the snapper at the end," says sharp-eyed Authoress Ferber, seems "strangely old-fashioned and unconvincing now." New styles call for front drive, less road clearance, a sharper-tilted wheel. These eight stories will all do 20 mi. to a gallon; two of them will go 75 at a pinch. Some of the upholstery: A day in the frantically hard-working life of a successful actress, far removed from the "glamour" her public imagines her surrounded with. Efficient Fraulein's day off from her opulent Parkavian charges shows her efficient even in love. Manhattan Taxi-driver Ernie calls it an uneventful day after 16 hours of crowded life. Wifely Muriel spoils her husband's would-be romantic trip to Mexico by tagging along. Linny, all alone in Manhattan Sunday after Sunday, finally gives a friendly answer to the pimply corner lounger.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.