Recent Fiction

NOT IN OUR STARS -- Josiah E. Greene --Macmillan ($3).

Those who look upon the morning milk as one wholesome symbol of purity in an otherwise sullied world may not feel quite the same after reading this book. A long, character-full novel of rancor, frustration, and sex in a commercial dairy, by Sergeant Josiah E. Greene, 34, ex-writer of pulp thrillers and children's stories, Not in Our Stars has won the $2,500 Macmillan Centenary Award. With an impressively technical knowledge of modern milk-producing, a smooth, unpretentious narrative style, and a good ear for dialogue, Author Greene makes his managers, drivers, barn boys and farm wives real, unpleasant and very much alive.

THREE O'CLOCK DINNER -- Josephine Pinckney -- Viking ($2.50).

Contemporary Charleston is full of high-willed traditions, high-walled houses and high-born gentlefolk like Judith Redcliff, who would not think of having Sunday dinner before three in the afternoon. Shut in by such walls, lusty commoners like Lorena Hessenwinkle seem more vital, vulgar and exciting than they would otherwise. Judith's husband -- the triangle's apex -- happens to be dead but is still alive enough to cause high-tension bickering between the girls at Judith's three o'clock dinner. Novelist Josephine Pinckney has water-colored a neat, pale comedy of manners which the Literary Guild has selected (October) and M-G-M has already bought for $125,000.

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