Books: Gibbsville

APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA—John O'Hara—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

Presented is the city of Gibbsville, Pa. (pop.: 24,032), battening on the anthracite coal industry at a time when the Depression was called the Slump. In a story of only three days, John O'Hara succeeds in covering as much ground about Gibbsville as Sinclair Lewis did in describing Gopher Prairie (Main Street) in three years. He writes with swift realism, wisely avoids sentimentality.

The story is one of liquor, love and fights, of the Lantenengo Street smart set of Gibbsville, of the town's underworld. Julian and Caroline English, married four...