Show I Barry Benefield Surpasses Past Works With Novel NovelA A LiU Little e Clown Lost is s Story of Tangled Loves S By VICTOR MARKS There is but one thing to be said about Harry Barry Benefield's latest novelA novel A Little Clown Lost It Is tire best thing he has ever written Those who have read The Chicken Wagon Family and Bugles In the Night can figure that out for themselves them them- selves For one thing the narrative narra- narra tive of A A. A Little Clown Lost far surpasses that of his other works There is more drama to this story it has a greater play on tire Imagination imagination nation and it delves deeper Into life than the previous books It Isa is a. a a story that grips the reader one that it Is impossible to lay aside until It iC is finished Out of a a. northern Louisiana storm came Hooker Dibble and his daughter daugh- daugh ter Phoebe to the ancestral home borne ofa or of a hermit boy Shep The boy seldom used the home He spent his tine Une in the woods around the sleepy bayou taking his knowledge from the trees and the flowers the myriad birds and the little animals of the forest But the coming ot of Hooker Dibble and his h daughter Phoebe changed that for that night the old medicine peddler died Phoebe had an aunt in a a. little Ozark mountain town where she intended intended in- in tended to go but she never went She stayed with Shep In the rambling house until Sheps Shep's uncle and the sheriff came to break up what rumor rumor ru- ru mor branded an unholy union But they didn't break It up The girl from out of the storm and the hermit hermit her her- mit boy got m and Shep changed his ways He studied until he was ws able to PMS pass the entrance examinations at the University of Texas Then they went to live in Austin In a little house She went to grade school while he went to college And then one day Shep came caine home to find her gone He went vent back to the plantation for the summer sum sum- mer trying always to find her He leased the place to Hal Denham and andis his is young Scotch wife Hal had been ejected from his English home to join the ranks of the remittance men Hals Hal's falling failing is drink and Ilis It Il Itis is not long until he disappears Sher Shep stays puts away the books he loves and manages the plantation and Its incidental Interests for Mrs Denham Denham Den ham Hal and Phoebe meet She is a circus clown He finds out who sho is and informs Sh Shop p who comes to Austin and finds her She goes back ck to the plantation and Mrs Is I's Denham has a Sheps Shep's Phoebe and Hal go away together back to the circus and she sees Shep only once afterwards Benefield Benefield Bene- Bene field Is supreme when he brings the little clown to the porch of the tho she lived In with Shep And Andas s a-s she sits there behind the vines Shep and his son now now grown pause at the gate She hears the boy call him father and as the two stand at the gate the father reveals to his son some of his life Ufe with Phoebe The little clown hears that Shep still loves her has always loved and and- she lets him go up the hill to the tho university Phoebe goes back to the circus And that's the end of the most delightful story Benefield has written The Century company compan New York |