Books in Brief

Dunbar’s Cove, by Borden Deal (Scribner, $4.50). It is not until midpoint in this novel that one may say, with certainty, that it is a sermon in corruption. For 175 pages, Matthew Dunbar, a pre- New-Deal individualist, holds his own against the forces of collectivist “progress”—represented by a faceless young TVA purchasing agent whose task it is to clear Matthew from Dunbar’s Cove, so that it may be engulfed by the backwaters of a federal dam. But then Matthew sees that Norris Dam above his property has tamed the formidable flood waters of the Tennessee. The rest of the book is a long fall into the moral ruin of submission to “needful change”— although some gun play is necessary before the point is made with final clarity. Mr. Deal’s style is potentially distinguished, but he has defaced it with a number of absurd mannerisms. Foremost among these is the incessant use of gerunds in the place of nouns (a solution is a “solving,” a desire a “wanting,” activity a “doing”), in a misguided attempt to achieve pace and vigor by choking every sentence with verbals. c. logan

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, by A Co-Founder (Harper, $4.00). A power of good has been done in the organization which calls itself Alcoholics Anonymous, and this book, by one of the two men who founded AA on June 10, 1935, brings the history of its development and progress down to the present day. As is now widely known, the AA’s are obsessive drinkers who keep the compulsion at bay by going through what is clearly a religious experience, then embarking on a spiritual regime called “The Twelve Steps,” and thereafter staying together through frequent meetings where they counsel and encourage one another. This story of Co-Founder “Bill W.” and his colleagues is fascinating, and especially instructive for its account of the providential good sense which guided them in making their organization big, but neither wealthy nor bureaucratic. In these days of ubiquitous foundations, that in itself was an achievement. f. farr

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Dunbar’s Cove, by Borden Deal (Scribner, $4.50). It is not until midpoint in this novel that one may say, with certainty, that it is a sermon in corruption. For 175 pages, Matthew Dunbar, a pre- New-Deal individualist, holds his own against the forces of collectivist “progress”—represented by a faceless young TVA purchasing agent whose task it is to clear Matthew from Dunbar’s Cove, so that it may be engulfed by the backwaters of a federal dam. But then Matthew sees that Norris Dam above his property has tamed the formidable flood waters of the Tennessee. The rest of the book is a long fall into the moral ruin of submission to “needful change”— although some gun play is necessary before the point is made with final clarity. Mr. Deal’s style is potentially distinguished, but he has defaced it with a number of absurd mannerisms. Foremost among these is the incessant use of gerunds in the place of nouns (a solution is a “solving,” a desire a “wanting,” activity a “doing”), in a misguided attempt to achieve pace and vigor by choking every sentence with verbals. c. logan

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, by A Co-Founder (Harper, $4.00). A power of good has been done in the organization which calls itself Alcoholics Anonymous, and this book, by one of the two men who founded AA on June 10, 1935, brings the history of its development and progress down to the present day. As is now widely known, the AA’s are obsessive drinkers who keep the compulsion at bay by going through what is clearly a religious experience, then embarking on a spiritual regime called “The Twelve Steps,” and thereafter staying together through frequent meetings where they counsel and encourage one another. This story of Co-Founder “Bill W.” and his colleagues is fascinating, and especially instructive for its account of the providential good sense which guided them in making their organization big, but neither wealthy nor bureaucratic. In these days of ubiquitous foundations, that in itself was an achievement. f. farr