Books: Double-Decker

ROLL RIVER — James Boyd — Scribner ($2.75).

In quantity, Author James Boyd has always given his readers their money’s worth. Drums, Marching On, Long Hunt were all lengthy historical romances in which many a reader took great stock; some captious critics found the stock somewhat watered, but Author Boyd has established his reputation as a popularizer of U. S. legend. No mere praiser of times past, and not willing to go on forever writing melodramas of an earlier day, in Roll River he has come to grips with his own age.

Roll River begins in the 1880’s, rolls all the way down to the 1920’s. Its scene is “Midian,” a western Pennsylvania town (Author Boyd’s native place was near Harrisburg, Pa.). First part tells the tragic love story of Clara Rand, only daughter of Midian’s coal tycoon. Clara was the greatest catch in town but she was also a character in her own right. When Fitz-Greene Rankin, a suave young newcomer from Philadelphia, began to court her, fascinated Clara put up little or no resistance; neither did her parents after they had investigated Fitz-Greene’s ancestry and prospects. It looked like a conventionally respectable marriage. But Fitz, under his cool exterior, was madly in love with his wife, gradually lost hope of her ever reciprocating. Good 19th-Centuryites both, they never discussed the matter. When Clara finally discovered that even a good woman can fall physically in love, it was too late: Fitz-Greene had gone on a despairing bender in Philadelphia, picked up an unmentionable complaint. For some strange reason the doctors could do him no good. After holding his wife at arm’s length for as long as he could stand it, he drowned himself in what looked like a skating accident. Clara knew it was suicide, but when at last she found out the reason, it made things a little better.

Hero of Roll River’s second part is Clara’s nephew Tom, who pursues a respectable if undistinguished career through boarding school. Yale and the first stages of his family coal business. He cautiously gives the slip to the rather alarmingly attractive girl he should have married, and staidly weds his insipid opposite number. In Paris during the War he meets the right girl again, but does the decent thing and goes home to his wife and family. Later, when he is just on the point of breaking away for good, the resigned example and advice of his Aunt Clara send him back to harness. His last (and unconventional) act is to godown one of his mines to help rescue some trapped miners. The effort gives him his deathblow; he dies hoping unspoken better things for his 20th-Century son.