MARV

There are interesting developments in the Bronx bailiwick of Laura and Amy, Peter and Veronica. For one thing Mrs. Sachs seems to be extending her series inward rather than onward: if the addition of Mary, master tinker, family failure, is indicative, then the table-turning on Peter and Veronica was no isolated tour de force—in the eyes of Mary's admiring family, and in his admiration of Marv, Peter takes on still a different aspect. For the first time, too, the date of the story, 1939 onwards, is stipulated, and carries the weight of world events: in an inspired sequence Mary meticulously plots Hitler's kidnapping to please his chief critic, college sister Frances, who'd have him do something useful for mankind (the only hitch—"nobody drives"); and increasingly Papa worries about Cousin Lebel, caught in France. Moreover Papa is secretary of Baker's Union Local 27, which takes the family on a picnic that's another yeasty slice of life. But the story doesn't take Mary anywhere, and that's the rub: after he's labored for the month that Frances is away absorbing the life of migrant workers to transform the front yard into the sylvan bower she once admired, she has one look and bursts into tears. He's confounded but "it's too complicated for today"; meanwhile he has new and better ideas. The suspicion that Mrs. Sachs is edging over into the incertitudes and ironies of adulthood is confirmed by the conclusion (Cousin Lebel's fate is in abeyance too); but Marv's bearding of Zelitsky the butcher or his pride that takes a fall with the dumbwaiter stand for something that doesn't need to be spelled out.