Iowa Melodrama

STRANGER'S RETURN--Phil Stong--Harcourt, Brace ($2). Only Iowans can properly judge how truly Author Stong's 14th novel* mirrors Iowa life, but any hayseed can tell that Author Stong has seen some strongly improbable cinemas. Author Stong, however, has plentifully seasoned this fare with generous helpings of sardonic Iowa humor. Grandpa Storr, a cross between Falstaff and King Lear, talked like Mark Twain in unexpurgated mood. His language and actions were equally offensive to his household, consisting of: his nephew's wife (wicked), his stepdaughter (foolish), her husband (weak). They sat around like jackals waiting for him to die, watching their chance to put him in an institution. When they heard that his granddaughter Louise was coming back to the farm they were alarmed, afraid that Grandpa would change his will in her favor. Sure enough, Grandpa and Louise took to each other instantly, soon became great pals. Though Louise was a Manhattanite she found herself quickly at home on the farm, won the approval of the neighbors by her ready backchat and friendly ways. She won more than approval from Guy Crane, a rising young married farmer, and from Simon, Grandpa's taciturn farmhand: but she kept things fairly well under control. To make the plotters show their hand Grandpa pretended to go crazy. Unmasked at last, they were shown the door, and Grandpa and Louise breathed easily again. When Grandpa died, leaving Louise mistress of the farm, Guy had the decency to clear out too. Whether or not Louise would solace her loss with Simon is a solution Author Stong does not even hint at; but at any rate she got the farm.

*State Fair (TIME, May 9, 1932), Author Stone's first published novel, was the 13th he wrote.

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