SOME FACES IN THE CROWD.

By BuddSchulberg '36. New York: Random House.1953. 309 pp. $3.00.

The faces in this crowd are grotesques. We see them in brief glimpses and recognize their familiar expressions of weariness, frustration, and greed. They are urban, mid-century, American, the faces on the subway, at Ciro's, on the sidewalk in front of the Garden, or in the lobby of the Mayflower. They are the faces of the richest people on earth. A pity they are not happier.

Budd Schulberg sketches these people with the economical strokes of a professional draughtsman in his latest book, a collection of twenty short stories. The longest is an account of the rise of Lonesome Rhodes, a radio and TV idol, to his brief hour on the megalomaniac heights of popularity and power. Others are tales of Hollywood, Broadway, and war-time Washington. Some are stories of children, some of prize fighters, some of vacationers in Key West or Acapulco. One is a study of battle fatigue in the ETO. One is an ironic joke at the expense of a pompous author of Book-of-the-Month-Club best-sellers. In manner they are mordant, objective, and realistic. The narrative line in all of them is firm and straightforward, and they move rapidly.

The book's virtues are those of What MakesSammy Run and The Harder They Fall. The best stories in it are, to this reviewer, the stories of fighters. If he had to pick a favorite, it would be "Memory in White," about a punchy featherweight who aspired to be a fight announcer. Schulberg writes of the ring and the raffish limbo that surrounds it with fine understanding. One hopes he will return often to this material.