Viper in the Fist
by . Prentice-Hall, $2.75.
This first novel, which has won a couple of literary prizes in France, is the story of a fiendish mother’s warfare with her three small sons. The second of these, the narrator, quite understandably becomes possessed of the devil himself, and he organizes a junta which wages a resourceful vendetta against Mama. M. Bazin has wrested from this grim subject a curiously exhilarating tale, glowing with ferocious humor and executed with superb artistry.