Any Small Town

INTO THIN AIR (257 pp.)--Warren Beck--Knopf ($3).

On a residential street in the Midwestern town of Cedarsville, workmen were razing the fine old Johnston residence. At an upper window of his own house next door, Ralph Kempner watched the daily progress of destruction from a wheelchair, and backtracked in memory over the 70-odd years of his life. Cedarsville folk naturally wondered what old Kempner was thinking about, because he had always been such a cold, silent fish.

His memories were no one else's business, of course, but they would have made a field day for the gossips.

A Few Trips. Into Thin Air is a novel whose story might have come from any U.S. small town. Why did Kempner, a wealthy, attractive manufacturer, never marry? What about all those out-of-town trips he used to take, presumably on business? And what was he always jawing about with Mrs. Johnston, a woman old enough to be his mother? Working with such commonplace matters, and playing them for no more than they are worth, Warren Beck has written a minor novel with the grace and dignity appropriate to a major one. In its quiet way, it keeps claiming kinship to Willa Gather's small classic, A Lost Lady.

What happened to Ralph Kempner was in no way unusual. His Cedarsville boyhood was innocent and irresponsible, marred by no greater sins than forbidden swimming and fishing. Growing up, he learned about sex from his mother's young housemaid, and learned about the same time that his mother meant to run his life. Especially, she was determined to pick his wife, and after Yale and his father's death, Ralph was the town's prize catch. But he turned down the nice girl of his mother's choice and became that much-whispered-about institution, the town bachelor.

A Few Checkers. The reason Ralph Kempner never married was quite simple. He fell in love with Mrs. Johnston's daughter-in-law Elissa, whose husband was often out of town. Primarily, Into Thin Air is a story of adultery, handled with a delicacy and understanding that few U.S. writers have brought to the subject. Author Beck manages with exquisite taste to give dignity and beauty to the love of Ralph and Elissa even as it swamps both of them in guilt. Neither has the strength to admit the guilt and ask Harold Johnston to agree to a divorce. When Johnston takes Elissa to live in California, Kempner settles down to live out a passive life checkered only by a few inconclusive out-of-town liaisons. Only old Mrs. Johnston ever knows his secret, and Author Beck scores a triumph in endowing her with understanding and intelligence at once Christian and credible.

Warren Beck is an English teacher at Lawrence College (Wis.). In Into Thin Air he never talks big and never tries for too much, but he shows writing craft good enough for a larger theme. When he finds it, the U.S. may have another novelist to cheer about.

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