Every so often somebody writes a novel which is both serious enough to escape intellectual opprobrium, and direct enough to be read without a long period of spiritual preparation. "The Homecoming Game" is such a moral-intellectual rodeo.

Author Nemerov teaches at Bennington and writes books, of which this is his sixth. Three have been poetry. He draws his settings and characters from the small college campus, using two alumni, two professors, two students, and a president to keep his story going. There are, of course, a few touches of Cambridge, including some remarks about green bookbags.

The nominal plot is so trite as to be absurd: our hero is a professor who has flunked the football hero before the big game, and our problem is whether or not pressure will force him to recant his decision. Personal factors complicate this moral issue, however, and thus save the book from its anticipated collapse.

Certainly Nemerov's moral attitude does not make very engaging reading, although the fact that he has such an attitude is a pleasant change from most current fiction. But the morality play fortunately has to take a dramatic back-seat once Nemerov introduces his personal factors, a strangely appealing triangle.

Insight into the Mind

The professor, the football player, and in between, the football player's girl, create a novelty which counteracts the trite moral issue. The girl is especially startling, one of those rare fictional characters whom you have met somewhere before. The intensity which Nemerov generates around these people can well pull the reader through the book in a single sitting, if he overcomes the slow start.

The author also has a remarkable insight into the academic mind. He delineates the mentality and atmosphere of the collegiate with sometimes startling skill.

All of this does not make "The Home coming Game" a great book. It is not even a perfected good back. It has faults, and its virtues are primarily entertaining. But because it engages more than the purely dramatic sensibilities of the reader, it is an unusually satisfying entertainment: one which might even modify those sensibilities a little, if given half a chance.