The Side of the Angels

IN MORE than a dozen wartime stories in the New 1 orkcr, Robert McLaughlin revealed his remarkable talent for reducing the bigotry and intolerance in this country to single, dramatic incidents too human and definitive to be denied or easily forgotten. His first novel, The Side of the Angels, is more of the same on a much broader scale, but less restrained and specific, and consequently, less effective.

Against the backdrop of war and changing human values, Mr. McLaughlin has pitted the two Egan brothers — Tom, a youthful and idealist ic enlisted man, and Clark, a successful, amoral advertising man of the “huckster” variety who has wangled his way into the OSS. Both are finely drawn characters representing what Mr. McLaughlin considers the good and the evil in our current society. Tom, a non-radical liberal, is on the side of the angels and wears his concern for humanity on the sleeve of his battle jacket. Clark cares for no one except himself and sides with the reactionaries, who butter his bread.

The war careers of the two brothers cross and recross, first in New York and later in Italy, with each meeting enhancing the deep schism in their attitudes and reactions. After falling in love with a Jewish girl, Tom is shipped overseas as an infantry replacement and learns war at first hand at Salerno. Clark hobnobs with generals and plays it safe, until he is accidentally caught in the fiasco at Bari, where German planes sank fourteen Allied ships in a single raid. Each is wounded and eventually reaches home for a final meeting and a determined parting of their post-war ways.

Mr. McLaughlin has a Dos Passos eye for detail. The stamp of authenticity is on everything he describes, whether it be the operation of a flame thrower, or the grand strategy for an aborted invasion of Yugoslavia, or the conversations of a young couple engaged in a hurried love affair. He has said much about the war that needed to be said, and said it well. Without resorting to heroics, he has given a graphic account of the barraeks-to-battle experiences of a sensitive GI, plus the tale of fast living and frantic furloughs in Washington and New York.

What apparently is disturbing Mr. McLaughlin is the inability of conscientious citizens in a democratic society to hit upon a positive program for progressive action. His hero, Tom Egan, has a desperate desire to fight reaction and racial prejudice, but does not know how to go about it. As Tom himself remarks in a moment of selfcriticism, speaking of do-gooders in general, “We’re negative, really. We know what we don’t want to happen, but that’s all. The liberal is the apostle of the irresolute.” And the reader is inclined to agree, as far as Tom is concerned, because Mr. McLaughlin makes him the weaker of the two Egan brothers in terms of practical accomplishments. It is the bigoted Clark who is the more likely to change the world to suit his ends

EDGAR L. JONES