BOOKS

THE SERGEANT

by Dennis Murphy, Viking Press, $3.50, 254 pp.

This is a first novel by a handsome. young Californian. Readers may easily get the notion from the jacket blurb that the story actually happened to the author. The book comes complete with warm dust-jacket compliments by John Steinbeck, Mark Schorer and Wallace Stegner. For a novel entirely about a homosexual relationship (though no such word is used), it got a surprisingly agreeable review in TIME-which also fingered the book's chief weaknesses.

It is the story of a seduction that never gets beyond the drinkingbuddy stage. Definitely not a "gay novel." It tells starkly, sometimes frighteningly, of a young soldier (real clean-cut type) in a bleak storage depot in France, prettily in love with a French girl (understanding type) and also pursued by his sergeant.

Master Sergeant Callan, of the book's title, a hero in the last war, a professional soldier, a stickler for military procedure, and something of a bastard, comes to the completely demoralized, slipshod depot and quickly makes himself hated and respected by enforcing regulations with a loud bluster. He takes the boy, Private Swanson, under his wing as Company Clerk, breaks down his resistance and carries him on a nightly drinking spree through neighboring villages. Sgt. Callan is feverishly

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drawn to the boy, who is not entirely unwilling, but neither quite realizes what is happening. Their romance has all the tension and caterwaulling of an alley cat courtship, and leaves as many scratches on all concerned. The tale is well told. Suspense is heavy. And if Sgt. Callan is the sort of homosexual villian described by Norman Mailer in the Jan. '55 ONE, he is nonetheless drawn with sympathy. The ending is a bit like a muffed version of the GOTTERDAMMERUNG, but who expects decent endings today in novels on this subject?

Lyn Pedersen

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We issue regular lists of literature on homosexual themes and search for out of print titles in all fields.

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THE MOON VOW by Hazel Lin, Pageant, 312 pp., $4

In this second novel by a Chinese woman gynecologist a very similar Chinese woman gynecologist labors tediously to discover why a pretty young Peking bride refuses to go to bed with her husband. Dr. Lian-Hua Wu labors so hard in fact that for many months, she doesn't manage to get to bed with her own loving, sweet, understanding, devoted, virile husband for more than a few min-

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