Books: Before the Fact

A PIN TO SEE THE PEEPSHOW—F. Tennyson Jesse — Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). Readers who know that Fryn Tennyson Jesse is a woman, the grandniece of the late Alfred, Lord Tennyson and a versatile author in her own right, will expect something unusual from A Pin to See the Peepshow. Readers to whom she is not even a name may be agreeably surprised at the bright zest of its introductory pages, increasingly depressed as its long middle section threatens to turn hopelessly humdrum. But they will do well to persevere. From boring realism the story finally emerges into agonizing, deeply moving life.

Julia was the only child of very ordinary lower-middle-class London parents, but she herself was unusual: she had a consuming interest in Life. Though she was not always pretty, people noticed her. At school she was the most popular girl. As apprentice in a socialite dress shop she learned fast, soon became indispensable. The War brought her a young lover, then took him away before she could find out what love meant. So she married an importunate widower in uniform, and discovered that her husband was a mindless, exacting body. By the time she met Leonard, a mechanic on an aircraft carrier, she was ready for him. Though his leaves were far between they became increasingly desperate lovers, racked their wits for some way out of their mess. Julia’s husband discovered their secret but refused to give Julia her freedom.

Panic-stricken for fear Leonard would leave her, she talked of a suicide pact, wrote him foolish letters which he foolishly kept, toying with the idea of removing their stubborn obstacle. When one night Leonard made a drunken attack on her husband and unintentionally killed him, they were both charged with murder. Not even after the verdict was pronounced could Julia believe she would really have to die. The hypodermics they gave her as she waited for the gallows dulled her mind but did not change it.