THE LAST ADAM

A really significant book by an author whose SS SAN PEDRO won him some recognition. Marks a milestone in the handling of the American small town, applying the GRAND HOTEL technique, with the result that you see the town from diverse angles, its web intricately interwoven, the lives of its inhabitants, rich and poor, touching at unexpected points and brought into focus by a typhoid epidemic. The central character is the country doctor, not the usual glorified, sentimentalized figure, but a rather surprisingly shoddy and at the same time appealing human being. A much better book than Edna Forber's AMERICAN BEAUTY, but should appeal to the same type of reader. Has something of the DR. SEROCOLD flavor.