Books: Whiz, Bang, Sputter

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UNKIND STAR—Nancy Hoyt— Knopf ($2.50). Two girls were born on the same night, under the same star, to life on erratic earth. Lilias Rabenstein was the daughter of an ambassador whose wife, the most charming lady of Europe, was intimate with the American mother of Cintra Amory. The two girls, growing up together in the flowery atmosphere of pre-War Europe, grew up differently. Lilias, a remote and nervous comet, began her life by being engaged to Franz Czarany who later veered through an Italian milky way to exert an astral influence on Cintra. She, a steadier but not less brilliant star than Lilias, later married Terrence Down. When Lilias came to Paris after the War, Terrence was not blind to her bright beauty; but when she no longer dazzled his gaze, he returned to his wife, leaving Lilias to pursue her wayward course through a firmament of masculine sparks and fires. Miss Hoyt's writing has the shine together with the unaccountability of planetary motion. Gayly arranging the paths of her spheres, she, like another metaphorical Manipulator of Constellations, makes no explanations. She rules out reasons and motives; indicates that her little galaxy is, like a display of fireworks, intended only for the spectators' diversion. The bright gyrations do not come under the laws of literary astronomy; she will light the rockets and the roman candles when she chooses. The reader may watch, ask no questions, be amused at the whiz, bang, sputter.

Nancy Hoyt, sister of Poetess Elinor Wylie, devotee of the Great God Mencken, is a worldly wise young lady adept at cynical, momentary elegance of thought and phrase. Her previous novel, Roundabout, was not "popular."