From the 1961 Doubleday edition of No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West: In this brilliantly fashioned short novel by Vita Sackville-West, one of the most distinguished of British writers, a famous journalist accompanies an attractive widow on a leisurely voyage and discovers the raptures and torments of an apparently unrequited love.
His passion mounts even as he must face the fact that his beloved is unattainable; for, as the reader gradually learns, it is not just a matter of his humble origins, nor of her reticence and seeming preference for a likable — and highly eligible — fellow passenger. It is that he himself has only a brief time to live.Read More→
Adapted from the original review of Maggie-Now inSaturday Review, April, 1958. It is some years since A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith scored its dazzling hit and a few less since the appearance of its less impressive successor, Tomorrow Will Be Better.
Maggie-Now is the story of an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the early part of the 20th century, when the stream of immigration, from the Old Countries was at its flood. Though Maggie is Irish, the book turns its eye also on the other immigrant stocks as they converted Brooklyn into a churning microcosm of the American melting pot.
However, the author does not make the mistake of diffusing her attention over too large a field. Maggie-Now, her parents, her itinerant husband and her family are the group on whom the spotlight is turned. Read More→
