Faith for Straphangers

NICODEMUS -- Dorothy Walworth --Houghton Mifflin ($2.50).

Nicodemus ("he was the fellow who went to Christ in the middle of the night and wanted to know the lowdown. . . .") is the latest addition to the pious parade of current religious novels. Its appeal to readers is likely to lie less in its literary virtues than in its theme: the search for a valid religious faith by four despairing New Yorkers. They might be taken, together, as representing the common man. None of them had thought much about religion until World War II. Their contemporary torment is bluntly portrayed by Novelist Walworth with the forcefulness of the common woman.

Laura, the first New Yorker, was married to Henry, a successful radio commentator. Laura was middle-aged and unloved, and "that tooth, that tooth which worried the world, went nibble, nibble, nibble." When Laura timidly mentioned religion to Henry, he chuckled: "Really, Laura. To think your little mind has been chugging away!" Then Laura confided in dashing, suntanned Barry, who said: "What you need is some good lively sex with a real man who'll fling you around the room. . . ." Said Laura: "There must be another way out." "Of course," said Barry crossly, "you might try collecting stamps. . . ." So Laura began a half-hearted affair with Barry, who flung her around the room, but looked "as if [his] head were screwed on like an Easter rabbit's and [his] body full of gumdrops."

Ovaltine & Love. Gladys, another of the questing four, handed out nickels in a subway booth and roomed with a girl friend named Winnie. "They were always making Ovaltine and talking till all hours of the night. About deep things. Like love and why you do what you do." One day Winnie was run over by a taxi. Gladys "wanted a minister to say something about [Winnie] at the funeral." But all the ministers said sorry, it was the Easter rush; they had no time. Gladys began to wonder what God really was. She saw a stained-glass window that said: Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Sylvester Horace Rogers . . . GOD IS LOVE. Another inscription said: FEED MY SHEEP. The minister, an advanced thinker, said this meant that "people should have a living wage and good housing conditions." When Gladys asked him if, by praying, she could prevent her G.I. boy friend from being killed, the minister muttered: "Just trust God. All is well," and hurried away. Soon after, the boy friend was killed.

The third God-seeker was Actor Nick Romney, who was married to "sultry, sulky" Melita. Nick read the New Testament for the first time when he was given the role of a Protestant clergyman in a play. "This is a very interesting book, Melita," Nick said. "I must get a new orange stick," said Melita. Said Nick: "The man in here--you can't help but like Him." Said Melita, fingering the perfume bottles: "I'm all out of Intoxication." She also made Nick massage her big toe. At last Nick slipped a gun in his pocket and went out to shoot Melita's lover. But the lover was not at home. When Nick realized how miraculously a murder had been avoided, he ran to the nearest church to give thanks. But the church was locked "for the guys that get in trouble after the sun goes down." Said Nick: "To hell with it!"

Doubting Divine. The fourth God-seeker was the Reverend Job Tatum, who had risen from the wrong side of the tracks to the pulpit of one of Manhattan's toniest churches. But on Easter Sunday, 1944, when Job intoned his text, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," none of the congregation (which included Gladys, Laura and Nick) knew that Job had suddenly realized that "he did not believe a word of what he was saying."

After some nine symbolical months of doubt and travail, all of Author Walworth's characters dramatically bring forth faith in God. The Reverend Job's faith returns when he goes back to work in the slums. Actor Nick Romney finds faith by repulsing Melita's fleshly charms and acting his clergyman's role to perfection. Laura is saved when Henry is struck down by a terrible sickness. Gladys learns the meaning of religion when she goes to Christmas service and "sees" her dead fiance there, in battle dress.

The Author. Nicodemus is Author Walworth's fourth novel (the others: Faith of Our Fathers; They Thought They Could Buy It; Feast of Reason). Daughter of a Methodist minister, wife of Reader's Digest Editor Merle Crowell, Novelist Walworth lives in a remodeled farmhouse in Chappaqua, N.Y. Says her friend, Writer Grace Perkins, wife of Reader's Digest Editor Fulton Oursler: "She's small, she's trig, and if she isn't younger than her married daughter, her heart doesn't know it. Her spiritual essence is a faith that permeates everything she does or thinks. . . . Her writing keeps her ticking. . . . When with book she inhabits a secret world, but with delivery she emerges with a renewed and frolicsome affection."

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