"Father forgive them: they know not what they do!" he cried, his last blessing to them, because He loved them.

Helen stoop up stiffly and folded the paper into her diary. She mustn't keep poor Ruth waiting any longer. She brushed her hair and sprayed on Chanel #5.

But don't worry. By the end of the novel, she realizes that Christ was a genius, of course, but no more so than Mohammed or Buddha or Machiavelli, so the best thing to do is go out and get a job. Another heroine (as we learn from her "New Angles on Life notebook") is mildly inspired by a sermon, but finds her salvation in a brass bed with an old friend who happened to be in church that morning. It's good to dismiss it all like that, but don't admit the symbolism--unless it's at the artistic level, of course. For a while you actually seemed to take it seriously, and that should never be done. Unless you're writing about your own conversion which, if treated properly, is fashionable nowadays.

Now we come to the problem of protest. Of course one must protest, but against something other than life in general. And it's often wise to pick out a few specific manifestations of what you're protesting against and treat it satirically or ironically. But choose wisely. Why, for example, say something like this?

Harry was an ever superbly tailored local banker, Edward a forty year old retired New York business man, unmarried also, who was spending the summer in Honey Lou's guest cottage. A "safe" man. And good single man for dinner parties--so many Newport ladies were between 2nd or 3rd or 4th husbands, and extra men were so valuable for dinner parties.

Even we members of the jeunesse argentee know that you need a good single man for dinner parties. And what with Legal Aid, even the jeunesse papier mache can get a divorce. So choose more wisely.

But how to expose the horror, the shame, the depravity of it all? Obviously, mere unskilled exposition won't do the job. Ah, yes. Contrast. With the corrupt poor. Or the innocent wealthy. Better yet, with both. So in the midst of preparations for a Washington society wedding, shift briefly to a southeast slum and give a two-page summary of what it's like to be poor. And have the wedding be between one of the depraved and a young, Greek innocent. Her purity of thought (which borders on the feeble-minded) will really point up the futility of it all. And then, glory of glories!, have the Deprived One murder the beautiful bride of the Depraved One. One victim of the system destroying another. Only the causes of the whole tragedy surviving it. What irony! What tragedy! What rot!

Now is the time to say, according to tradition, that after all this is a first novel and despite all its defects one cannot help admiring a college girl for sitting down and writing a novel and that we certainly hope she will try again. But it isn't really admirable to write a novel devoid of plot, characterization, style, significance, and concern. It's just a colossal lot of nerve.