LAMENT FOR FOUR VIRGINS

There are four of them--the darling daughters of the best families in town--all young, all restless, all dying for a big romance. They sip their Cokes hopefully, they pump each other carefully, they whip their cars ostentatiously through the streets of Andalusia, Ga ... The first part of Lament for Four Virgins is a tongue-in-cheek report of what happens when one defenseless minister [Barbee] is besieged by four determined virgins, backed up by four determined mothers ... Serious Turn. Alas, Rector Barbee is by no means equal to the chase. He flees to a parish in Montana, and with Barbee gone, Lament for Four Virgins turns pretty serious. Author Tucker traces the careers of her four girls into middle age--Angela into a late, dreary marriage, Ellen Terra into sloppy promiscuity, Hope into money and dipsomania, and crippled Carrie into a solid romance with her doctor. The post-Barbee era is readable enough, but it lacks the spirit of the old days. --Time 7/14/1952.