The Readjustment

The Readjustment is an interesting little volume for a number of different reasons. In the first place, it is a good example of the modern impressionistic portrait painting with a minimum of sure, swift strokes. The man and the woman about whom the story mainly revolves are presented to us at the start in an apricot orchard in southern California. It looks, for a while, as though Mr. Irwin had nothing especially new to say in this book; as though it was aiming toward the rather hackneyed culmination of a rivalry between two women in which the finer natured of the two was destined to be the victim. But just at the end Mr. Irwin introduces an entirely new twist to an old situation and the "readjustment" which takes place under the very shadow of death solves a difficult situation in a way that is eminently satisfactory to all concerned.