Books: In Upper New York

THE BIG BARN—Walter D. Edmonds—Little, Brown ($2).

Unlike most novels by young men, The Big Barn is solid, careful, mature. Like Author Edmonds’ first book it tells of a countryside he knows but of a time long before he was born.

Old Ralph Wilder, self-made patriarch, has spent his aggressive life patching together acres of farm and forest land in upper New York State. By the time his family is grown up he owns or controls the whole Black River Valley. The local aristocracy will not accept him, but he scorns them; it is his ambition to found his own line. His sons are a disappointment: Henry, the elder, is bookish, an Abolitionist to boot. He and his father rub each other the wrong way. Bascom is almost too much like the old man for his peace of mind: many a farmer husband hates him, and with reason. When Henry brings home his wife Rose from Boston, the old man takes to her at once; so does Bascom. When the Civil War breaks and the brothers go to join the army, only Rose’s New England conscience has saved Henry from horns.

How Henry is reported missing, how Bascom comes home on leave, how the triangle is finally flattened out into a humdrum circle, may be left to the reader. Author Edmonds has studied his people, listened to their speech, and remembered what he has seen and heard. His minor characters, crotchety or crabbed, leave a more memorable impression than the more generally typical protagonists. The two figures of Pat and Leo, Dickensian country carpenters wandering inseparably through the story, are like Mutt & Jeff come true.

The Author. Walter D. Edmonds, 27, a native ofBoonville, N. Y., has spent nearly every summer there on his family’s farm and lately went back there to live Dark, long-faced, quiet, he is a good listener, his favorite occupation being to hear stories from farmers, canalmen, lumbermen. He has also written Rome Haul.