Antic Brew

The title Silence at Salerno and the reputation of Francis Steegmuller as distinguished man of letters might lead one to expect a serious book. But the author has departed from such erudite subjects as Flaubert, Cocteau, Maupassant, and Appollinaire to try his hand at a bit of light reading, which he has subtitled "A Comedy of Intrigue." This is not a new genre for him; under the pen name David Keith, he has written three mysteries.

The best way to give some inkling of the plot is to say that nothing is what it seems. The story is doled out in bits and pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle, and the reader stays with it to find out what is really going on. It is not until the final pages that everything is made clear. If the author's object was to mystify the reader, he has certainly succeeded, perhaps too well.

The central character is Nat Haley, an American writer of biographies, who has come to the island in the Gulf of Naples to regain peace of mind after the death of his wife. The antic brew in which he becomes involved includes the Saccas, whose Villa Bklyn is named from the return address of a relative in America; the government's salt monopoly and the smuggling shenanigans engaged in by "the Consortium," a sort of Mafia, as well as by the local Mother Superior and her nuns (for noble reasons); an aging principessa with mixed-up relationships; the widow of an American statesman, married to an Onassis-type billionaire; and strangest of all, a parish priest who uses an American catalogue for choosing "religious" tapes for his ear-splitting carillon and both outrages and convulses the island with such numbers as "Someone To Watch Over Me" and "Mary, Mary, Plain As Any Name Can Be."

Silence does return to Salerno, and how it comes about is part of this madcap tale. There is also much silence on the part of those who know the facts behind the surface appearance of things. Steegmuller also knows, but he doesn't tell until the very end.

SILENCE AT SALERNOby Francis Steegmuller '27Holt, Rinehart, 1978. 215 pp. $8.95

Charles Widmayer was editor of this magazinefrom 1943 to 1973.