Brownstone Relics

THE PEOPLE WITH THE DOGS (345 pp.)--Christina Stead--Little, Brown ($3.75).

Christina Stead is a globe-trotting Australian who has written caustic novels about failures in Sydney, high finance in Europe, black marketeers in Manhattan. The critics have generally praised her books, but the paying public has held back. Her new novel seems likely to get the same sort of reception. A snappish inquiry into the ways of men and dogs, it will appeal to those who take their reading extra-dry, their wit offbeat, their people eccentric.

This time, Novelist Stead's people are the genteel, moderately well-to-do Massines of Manhattan. There are two kinds of Massines: the ineffectual angels and the merely ineffectual. They like music, love dogs, hate snobbery and believe in family loyalty, but their will and ambition have gone soft. A bit decayed yet not decadent, they are rather like their 1,000-acre summer estate, an impressive old place that is slowly turning to weed.

Nothing very much happens to the Massines. Aunt Oneida suffers as her ancient bull terrier, Madame X, slowly dies, but Aunt Oneida soon has a new dog to fondle. Other Massines hang around their city apartments and summer home, chattering about the past, themselves and their dogs. The best of them, 33-year-old Edward, a kindly fellow of no particular occupation, startles the family by marrying an actress. This kind of thing is just what the Massines need, Novelist Stead implies.

During the years Author Stead lived in New York, she caught the big-city fever. Her book is full of its talk and humor, its weather and character. She has observed the manners of drug clerks, the delights of walking Manhattan streets ("rich and tender with neon") on a spring night, the friendly chaos of lower Manhattan life. She has an especially good eye for the Gramercy Park neighborhood, that sedate mixture of mild Bohemia and dusty elegance, with poverty just a step away.

The People with the Dogs has little drama, no memorable characters, and only limited significance. But its minor virtues are attractive. The Massines may be dying out, but they deserve to be noticed before they go.

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