Lay That Pistil Down, Babe

IN BED WE CRY--Ilka Chase--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

Ilka Chase's first novel is the liveliest agitation of stamens and pistil since the last flowering of the night-blooming cereus. Like the heady perfumes of its heroine (a chrome-plated Manhattan cosmetician), In Bed We Cry derives its strength from a dash of civet. The plot is a triangle whose base is always broad, whose chief points are streamlined by agelessness.

Amorous, ambitious Devon Elliott has rocketed from a shelf of cosmetic stink pots in a cheap Greenwich Village rented room to the ownership of Devonshire House, a cosmetic corporation whose function is thinking up things that women didn't know they desperately needed. Devonshire House has branches in 13 cities. Devon has her claws in several men. Man No. 1 is Tim Wainwright, Devon's husband, Devonshire House's chief concocter of the high-priced goos that pay for the Wainwrights' East River house. Tim is an Iowa farm boy not only in build but at heart. He has a mission: to do plasma research against the day when the U.S. will enter World War II.

"Tim," cries Devon when he tells her, "do you love me?" He does, right away. But it's no use. Tim leaves the cosmetic traffic for his laboratory, and Devon to a refugee satyr named Kurt who suffers from moral arthritis. Just as love is about to petrify into marriage, Devon discovers that Kurt is unfaithful.

Tim is killed in the war. Devon, saddened by life and threatened by hag-lines, prepares to market her latest perfume, Midnight Tears.

In Bed We Cry is Radio Actress Chase's first book since her autobiographical Past Imperfect, It is dedicated to the literary limousine trade by:

>> Its lush decors ("The bathroom was a miracle of coral, blue, and jade green, with a tub of flush-pink marble. There was also an open fireplace and a small concealed refrigerator for keeping cold her lotions and the Guinness's Stout. . . . Mirrored closets, glass-enclosed shower, a couple of low overstuffed slipper chairs in coral satin, two washbasins, and a telephone. . . . Her husband's eyes searched the magnificence. 'Where's the can?' ").

>> Its lush characters (Dickie, the epicene interior decorator, pipes: "I'm upholstering Fifi Vallambrosa's sofa entirely in ... tweeds. . . . We all know [it's] a one-story riding academy. What more endurable than tweed for the sporting life?").

>> Its gamey quips ("He thought he might as well go to Canada and try the R.C.A.F., and Beth has taken a little house to be near him." "What ever for? I thought Joe was a fag." "So he is, dear, but Beth is a camp follower.").

>> Its absinthe-minded mashing ("So saying, he bent and kissed the soft fullness of her breast. . . . 'Jasper, you're a beast, I'm happy to say,' she murmured dreamily.").

>> Its brittle sostenuto of streamline, pathic pain.

Says the book's blurb: "In Bed We Cry is filled with the undercurrents of a world at war, but its primary concern is with the froth. ..."

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