Books: Callaghan of Canada

A NATIVE ARGOSY—Morley Callaghan— Scribner’s ($2.50) Last year Morley Callaghan of Canada wrote Strange Fugitive, and was promptly likened to Ernest Hemingway of Michigan for his brusque, compact style, intently modern. His characters, of middling low mentality; his incidents, grim and macabre in their humor, smacked of contacts as a newspaper reporter. This year Author Callaghan furthers his reputation by a collection of stories, one of which—far from the best—was included in The American Caravan (arty anthology). A better story is entitled “A Predicament,” and concerns a young priest disturbed at confessional by a drunk who thinks he is on a street car, and demands to be let off at the corner of King and Yonge. The young priest, sliding the panel between him and the drunk, recognizes the grating sound as the same noise made by the closing doors of a street car. Fearful of unseemly disturbance, uncertain what to do, he prolongs a confession at the women’s panel, chides the penitent for lying, suggests that she say a little prayer whenever she feels she is going to lie. Then he turns to the other side of the confessional, hesitates, says three “Our Fathers” and three “Hail Marys,” and growls to the drunk: “Step lively there; this is King and Yonge. Do you want to go past your stop?” The drunk lumbers off. The priest looks forward to a sleepless night.