The Season of the Stranger
by .Harper, $3.00.
A university beside a great city in the North of China, about to fall to the Communists, is the setting of this first novel by a twenty-four-year-old American. The central strand is a love affair between a young American professor and a Chinese girl, whose father is the most corrupt official in the city and who is tormented by divided loyalties. Mr. Becker writes in a poetically impressionistic style which much of the time is highly effective. but sometimes blurs into obscurity. The poetic mood is counterpointed by vigorously handled spurts of action and sharp descriptions of violence: as the Communists approach, the Nationalist troops grow more savagely repressive.
Profoundly saturated with the atmosphere of China. Becker’s sensitive and unusual novel has captured the feverish suspense of days of waiting at a time of historic convulsion.