The Laughing Matter
THE LAUGHING MATTERby . Doubleday, $3.50.
There’s much chatter about the rightness of all possible courses of action in this novel, but it has little connection with the actual course of events. A happily married couple, taking a country vacation with their children, go all to pieces when the wife confesses that she has carried on a love affair while her husband was away earning money for a new car. There are scenes, tantrums, attempts at reconciliation, and a final disaster brought on by the man’s refusal to forgive his wife and admit what they coyly call “the stranger” into the family. Mr. Saroyan’s naïve style is effective in dealing with children, dogs, drunks, bums, and food, but applied to complex adult emotions, as it is here, it breaks down. The book is high tragedy in baby talk.