Books: Ninety Fragments

THE WAVE—Evelyn Scott—Cape-Smith ($2.50).

Hunky was the Book-of-the-Month Club’s July selection (see above). The Literary Guild’s was The Wave. Acclaimed a work of genius, The Wave succeeds in being at least unusual. Its 625 pages rehearse the Civil War without telling a connected story, but through 90 separate “stories.” Authoress Scott’s purpose: to make an impressionistic panorama of people then and how they felt. Her method recalls John Brown’s Body, the Civil War in blank verse by Stephen Vincent Benét. Like Poet Benét, Authoress Scott did her writing in foreign countries.

A Charleston youth sees the Yankees fire on Fort Sumter. A Baltimore clerk gets caught in a riot. Grant thinks. Someone preaches a pro-slavery sermon. Lincoln thinks. A Yank soldier, intoxicated in New Orleans, raves against Creole gentility. Richmond’s Spinster Araminta steals a loaf of bread. An old Jew beats a Negro woman for her prejudice against Jews. In the lull of battle, Cecile bestows her virginity on her Confederate fiance, to make his respite happy. Gettysburg scenes. New York draft riot scenes. Fragments of letters, newspapers.