Practically speaking, he follows the popular concept in this regard. His statement: "That homosexuality is a neurotic distortion of the total personality," I find to be far from my Own observations. Undertsanding, not "tolerant and kindly attitudes' produces the greatest benefit when any minister, priest, or rabbi undertakes guidance for the homosexual. Thus Rev. Christensen is not prepared to serve the needs of all of his immediate community and shirks part of the scope of his pastoral responsibility.

On the whole, the "Handbook" treats personal problems in an intelligent manner. The book is practical in the use of pre-marital guides. Too bad that it suffers in its approach to the singular challenge of homosexuality.

Rt. Rev. Bernard, Abbot of St. Geo., Monastery Las Vegas

THE MESSENGER by Charles Wright, New York, Farrar Strauss and Co., 1963, $3.95,

217 pp.

This is a fashionable book. It glamorizes junkies, whores, pimps and hustlers. The hero is a light-skinned Negro of 28 or 29 who works as a messenger, when he works, and thus sees many levels of New York life. New York is rendered romantic. And the romance is heightened by descriptions which never miss such details as the excrement of fashionable poodles on the sidewalks in front of Third Avenue antique shops.

Jazz, marijuana, alcohol and sex share about equally in the protagonist's experiences. When out of work, the hero occasionally picks up twenty bucks allowing "queers" to have their way with him. Some queers, not all. He will as disinterestedly bed down with lonely, aging women, picked up in smart bar rooms.

There are some very funny but

(remember, this is a fashionable novel) pathetic and lost, homosexuals in the book. A drag queen named Claudia is expertly drawn. In fact many of the characters are well realized, even a seven year old neighbor girl of dry precocity and innocence. This little girl has been a stock figure in the novels of the young since her prototype was created as Holden Caulfield's little sister in Catcher in the Rye; such little girls are invariably introduced to bring a breath of honest freshness into the hero's sordid life. They are always quaint. This one paints non-representational pictures in a children's class at the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Wright didn't overlook her: this is a fashionable novel.

Mr. Wright has, in fact, few problems with his writing. His problem is a deeper one. Pandering. The Messenger manifests a kind of literary Uncle Tomism. That is, it justifies prejudices, lends credence to the most ignorant stereotypes of both Negro and homosexual in the public mind.

This is too bad. Responsible Negroes have fought hard to wipe out a warped vision of Negroes as the refuse of American life. ONE and other organizations are trying to erase the concept of the homosexual given in this book. Not that bad and worthless Negroes do not exist. Not that bad and worthless homosexuals do not exist. Not that art should not tell the truth. It should, and hang the consequences. It should, and good art does.

But good art does not romanticize. It examines life and reports fairly. And it examines and reports from a position. Mr. Wright glamorizes filth and hopelessness and then takes an attitude toward it that combines, with cynical exactness, tolerance and disgust. This is not right. It is an attempt to have things both ways. And it will not work.