Word: reader
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...From a Science Research Associates third-grade reader...
...From a Harper & Row fourth-grade reader...
What turns a normal woman into a Harlequin junkie? The formula requires three ingredients: an exotic setting (Rome, the Caribbean, Africa), a demure heroine whose modest station in life is similar to the reader's, and a usually rich, arrogant hero who initially patronizes the heroine, then sweeps her off her feet "like a leaf in the wind" into a blissful, totally unLiberated marriage. Curses never go beyond an impetuous hero's "God's teeth!" ("What a shocking remark!" exclaims the heroine.) Sex never gets further than a kiss, but manages to crop up in perfervid abundance...
Even for the reader and television viewer who has been hooked on Watergate, there is some value in this tidy package. Who can clearly remember what John Caulfield said to James McCord while parked in a car beside the Potomac, or how Jeb Magruder tried to talk Hugh Sloan into committing perjury? That kind of thing still matters...
Finally, though, self-consciousness-the bane of academe as well as the bane of the contemporary novel-inhibits Stern from writing his love story and Merriwether from living it. They just aren't up to their fantasies. At novel's end, the reader can imagine Merriwether marrying Cynthia, buying another gabled Cambridge house, maybe even starting a second family-working, that is, toward a decent, intelligent synthesis of tradition and rebirth...