Mose of Mississippi

DEEP DARK RIVER--Robert Rylee--Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

Though many a reader has lately grown weary of tales of the South by Southern writers, the Book-of-the-Month Club nevertheless turned once more to that region, picked Deep Dark River as its July choice. On the strength of this, his first novel, critics carefully pigeonholed the name of Robert Rylee as a young U. S. novelist to bear serious watching.

Deep Dark River begins when Mary Winston, well-born Southern lady, only woman lawyer in Clarksville, Miss., accepts a routine case growing out of a shyster lawyer's theft of a Negro client's cow, is quickly involved in a complex and dangerous intrigue, uncovers a plot to hang an innocent and friendless Negro. Honest, stubborn, self-respecting, acutely conscious of her social and moral responsibilities, Mary has already made enemies by her interference with those who have lived by petty exploitation of Negro ignorance and fear, does not shrink from the more hazardous task of defending Mose Southwick against his influential persecutors.

A good-natured, thoughtful Negro, Mose had wandered into Mississippi from Louisiana, landed at last on the Rutherford plantation. There he lived contentedly, preaching and farming, until his marriage to a bad Negro woman from town lost him the respect of his neighbors, earned him the enmity of Birney, the plantation overseer. Only because Old Rutherford hated his degenerate sons and his pompous overseer could Mose remain on the plantation after he had driven Birney away from his cabin. But even Rutherford's protection could not save him when Birney sent another Negro to pick a fight with him, then blackmailed Mose's best friend to refute his claim of self-defense.

With attention concentrated on the fearful intrigue steadily tightening around Mose, readers may be slow in recognizing that Author Rylee has unobtrusively built him up as a strong character, a human being extraordinary in his selflessness, his patience and simple eloquence, his deep inner contentment with the seasonal simplicities of farm life. "De Lord done been trampled on befo. . ." he sermonizes. "An hit ain't never ruffle de Lord none. Dey done nail de Lord up an poke a knife in he side and done laid de crown o' thawns on he haid, an hit didn't no more'n make him groan out wunst."

Southerners may wonder that so amiable and intelligent a Negro as Mose should blunder into such devilish complications, or provoke such vicious enemies, but they are not likely to cavil over Author Rylee's understanding of the peculiar problems of Southern life. Indeed, Author Rylee finds the central motive for Mary's persistent effort to free Mose, for Rutherford's brief acceptance of his social responsibility, in their profound love of the South and their hatred of those who would dishonor it. Passionately Mary denounces the decent people of Clarksville for their acquiescence to such crimes as the framing of Mose. Yet she finds that many who avoided her during the trial congratulate her for her courage after her defeat, discovers among her neighbors many who feel as she does but who shamefacedly keep silent, fearing public opinion far more than they fear the loss of self-respect or the reproach of a troubled conscience.

The Author-Robert Rylee, slight, wiry, dark, 27, works as "handy man to the General Sales Manager" of the Hardware Dealers Mutual Fire Insurance Co. He was born in Memphis of a family that has lived in Tennessee and Mississippi for more than a century; was educated at Phillips Andover and Amherst; has waited on table at a Gloucester hotel; has worked as a farmhand in Connecticut; has traveled in France, Italy and England. In 1930 he took a job as clerk in an insurance agency in Dallas, spent his spare time writing three novels which he destroyed before they were completed. Transferred to the home office of the Hardware Dealers Mutual Fire Insurance Co. at Stevens Point, Wis. in 1934, Author Rylee edits and writes sales publications and manuals, trains office sales employes.

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