Inherited characteristics, the Negro problem in the South, shop-lifting among the young; these are among the themes employed by Advocate fiction writers in this sixth month of the war. The current Spring Fiction Issue which marks the first publication of the new Executive Board, departs from the macabre, the lurid and overly degenerate, characteristic of last year's issues. It is a welcome departure and one that should gain many new readers for Harvard's oldest literary magazine.

Not all of the four short stores are on a par with Norman Mailer's "Right Shoe On Left Foot," a powerful and tant story of the eternal clash between blacks and whites in the South. Mailer has the intensely realistic style of a James T. Farrell; he has perfected this technique and keeps perfect control over his subject matter. Least, successful of the stories, perhaps, is "The Bridge," by Robert Lowry, a conscious attempt at oversimplification that strives too much for this effect. Douglas Woolf handles his more familiar theme of tough children shop-lifting with ease and restraint. A too apparent theme spoils "The Best Policy" by Harold Smith.

The only article in this issue is by Mark Shorer of Harvard's English Department. "Sons and Lovers Reconsidered" expertly analyzes D. H. Lawrence's first novel. Examining the author's motives in writing it, a desire to free himself from a mother fixation, Shorer demonstrates that Lawrence as a novelist could never obtain the complete objectivity necessary for an author indulging in autobiographical material. It is a shrewdly written reconsideration, albeit a trifle obvious in dealing with the Miriam-Paul relationship.

The Advocate poets have not yet disassociated themselves from the tainted twenties and thirties; complete emancipation appears to lie somewhere in the far distance if we take the six poems in this issue as examples. Lawrence Olson's "Poem" is technically excellent but completely dependent on T. S. Eliot, even to phrasing and imagery. "The Zoo" by Howard Moss is another example: there are echoes of Dylan Thomas and Auden throughout it. These are both fine journeyman achievements; not as much can be said for John Crockett's "Elegy," deeply ingrained in the over-plushed tradition of last year's Advocate poets. Next to Crockett's poem, "Dance" by Paul Schneider is most poetically unpoetical.

The remainder of the magazine is given over to impressionistic book reviews mainly of "avant garde" literature. Eric Larrabee's excellent review of Robert Frost's new book stresses the fact that we must now turn away from the post-war despair literature of the last twenty years. This May issue is an excellent indication that the swing is taking place in the Advocate Sanctum, at least among the short story writers, who may not be dealing with current war themes, but have departed from the haunted degeneracy of the past few years.