Commercial Gimmick

So successful have these novelists been, in fact, that many critics have suspected that the whole phenomenon is nothing more than a commercial gimmick well exploited. 'Peyton Place" and that ilk have proved conclusively that sex and violence sell well anyway; have them described by a girl of eighteen and the readers of the world are yours. Alternatively, the girl of eighteen need not actually write the stuff, but merely put her name to it.

There are, however, two factors which reduce this last possibility almost to nothing. One is the fact that it would be easily enough exposed. Sagan has gone on writing, while a year in a finishing school in Kent would surely have shown Grimault up as a fake if she was one.

The second factor is the quality of the writing. Sagan writes short nerveless stories whose method and manner is perfectly adapted to their subject matter. Her characters have no great depth, but they are sharply outlined. An atmosphere of disillusioned boredom is brilliantly created and maintained.

As for Grimault, I have never read anything quite as shattering as the opening two chapters of "Blood on the Straw." If the succeeding pages are less shattering it is because we have been drawn powerfully into the atmosphere of a rather brutal French peasant family. Their actions no longer surprise us quite so much.