AT THE CROSSROADS.

By Evan S. Council Jr. '45. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1965. 256 pp. $5.50.

In the opening story of this collection of short stories author Connell writes of the leading character, Muhlbach: "He has been on the periphery of another kind of existence, one infinitely more exciting, one that he is not privileged to share.... He is excluded, he can come no closer ... than imagination will take him."

This analysis would seem to apply, at least partially, to both the novels and short stories written during the last fifteen years by Evan S. Connell Jr. '45. Connell is a brilliant realist who probes into the minor episodes, actions, thoughts, and words woven into human existence; and yet there is always this constant and baffling quality of detachment in his works.

Several of the stories in this latest collection have appeared over the past several years in The Saturday Evening Post and in other magazines. They run the gamut of tragedy, comedy, surrealism, and suspenseful narrative, showing to best advantage Connell's diversity of talents and his penetrating poetical perceptions. But one leaves each story with a curious sense of unreality as though the reader were largely detached from all of this and perceiving human experiences for the first time through alien eyes.

The first three stories are of Muhlbach, a middle-aged man who suddenly has lost his wife and, with her, his daily world. The final three deal with Leon and Bebert, two delightfully whimsical young men who share a make believe world of words and fantasies. In between, as the dust jacket reports, there are "a rich variety of stories in many moods" - six to be precise. Read them, for they are not ordinary fare, and you may come to understand why Connell is generally regarded as one of America's ablest contemporary literary craftsmen.