The Malfreys

New York: Random House. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1944). First Edition. Hardcover. [good sound book, slight fading to cloth at top of spine, minor shelfwear and light soiling to bottom edges; jacket modestly edgeworn, age-toned and lightly soiled, a bit of chipping at top of spine, short diagonal creases at bottom corners of both flaps, some shallow insect-nibbling at bottom of front flap]. Described in the jacket blurb as "the most mature book [the author] has yet written," this is a novel about a couple whose "unorthodox marital arrangements exactly suited their strange love for each other, which found expression in continuous violence." Yikes. The husband, James, had "married Cordelia to avoid a scandal over his love affair with the wife of his law partner and [he] often tormented both women with the diabolical ingenuity of an intellectual and emotional sadist." (And he's a drunk, too.) Double yikes. The New York Times reviewer of the book (a woman) had an interesting take on it: "Almost everyone knows of marriages on that order that seem to be far more satisfactory to the participants than any idyll in a rose-covered cottage. It is to Miss Whitcomb's credit that she makes this one convincing." All sounds a little Who's-Afraid-of-Virginia-Woolfy, doesn't it? .