lengths to which Jack will go in apparentndefense of the Homestead arenunderstood by Sam as evidence of hisnbrother’s insanity.nJack Walker does duty as a secondnand secondary first-person narratornspeaking in brief, cryptic passages thatnseem to blend the voices of Quentinnand Benjy Compson and that representnsome of the finest writing of whatnis on the whole a very beautifullynwritten book. It’s Jack who seems willingnto accept the moral inheritance thatnSam rejects, to live as the scion of anBRIEF MENTIONSnpioneer aristocracy that stretches backnto Captain Uncle Joe Walker, a legendarynforebear who was a contemporarynof Jim Bridger. With his own quirkyndetermination he takes a definitenstance against both the evil and thensimple absurdity of modern life:n. . . and all i want to knownnow is that what it really comesndown to anymore bashing whitenniggers in the head with ancowboy boot or getting shotninto space with a peebag and anDAY CARE: CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND ADULT ECONOMICS,nedited by Bryce ChristensennRockford, IL: The Rockford Institute; 151 pp.,n$15.95 (hardcover), $9.95 (paper)nDay Care: cui bono? would be an equally apt, if more cynical, title for this book,nwhich is far less innocuous than its professional reserve might suggest. Day Carencomprises a series of papers and the discussions thereof given at two conferencesnconvened within the last eighteen months by The Rockford Institute andnattended by child psychologists, economists, and policy analysts, among others.nThe topic of the first conference was the generally neglected question, “Howndoes daycare affect children?” while the focus of the second was the growingnpreference among American parents and policymakers in favor of interests andnvalues that are only partially motivated by economics.nIn “The Risks of Day Care for Children, Parents, and Society,” Dr. Jack C.nWestman, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, argues flatlynthat “full-time day care, no matter how heavily funded, is not in the interests ofnyoung children, their parents, or society, because it is a response to thenemployment of parents . . . not to the needs of the children nor parents.”nDaycare workers, he believes, cannot possibly provide a reasonable facsimile ofn• the parental love upon which what he calls “the attachment bonds” of infantsndepend;.deprived of those bonds, very young children may be unable to developna basic trust in constant human relationships, with the result that “rancor,’nalienation, and strain” eventually poison the relationship between such childrennand their parents.nAnd with “The Economics of Day Care,” Professor James Walker, anneconomist also with the University of Wisconsin, kicked off the secondnconference by seeking to demonstrate that the demand for daycare is notnproduced by maternal employment; instead, the same incentives that cause annincreasing number of mothers to work also encourage them to deliver theirnoffspring into the hands of professional attendants. Deborah Walker, anotherneconomist, calls attention to the naked self-interest of child psychologists, state ^nbureaucrats, and providers of child-care services, all of them presently vociferousnlobbyists in the campaign for state-supported daycare; while Allan Cadsonnidentifies the movement as merely one aspect of a broad historical trend bynwhich households have been encouraged to surrender their economic functionsnto the state. And Richard Vector of The Heritage Foundation refers constantlynto the fact that traditional families, which are much more numerous thannprogressive activists care to admit, are forced to subsidize daycare for thenchildren of parents both of whom work and who therefore enjoy much highernincomes than families in which only the father is wage-earner: a clear examplenof what Joseph Sobran calls “alienism,” or the ideological preference for thenabnormal over the normal that characterizes so much of the public debate innAmerica today.n— Chilton Williamson, Jr.n36/GHRONICLESnnnload of freezedry orangejuicenbecause if it is and the worldnhas got too civilized anymorenfor courage selfsacrifice andnwhat used to be called honor indon’t care they can stick me innjail and throw away the keynand i can be dead like captainnuncle jo and all the othernheroes then like jim bridger saidnit used to be a man could seenforever in this country butnanymore nobody wants to looknany further than the end of hisnown nose.nIf Sam is right to see a strong selfdefeatingnquality in this attitude ofnJack’s, Jack also seems to have a plausiblencase that Sam is, despite his ostentatiousnheroics in Africa, both a physicalnand a moral coward. His evidence fornthat idea is part of the novel’s extremelyncomplicated subtext, to which all thencharacters constantly make cryptic allusions.nThe mystery element of thenstory—who done what and what for —ninvolves the past as much as the present.nIn fact the Walker family closets are fullnto bursting with bones.nH omenlife on the Homestead isnsuch a dismal affair that one understandsnwhy Sam prefers Africa. ThenOld Man rules the big house with anpatriarchal authority. Grace, the mothernof the three siblings, is an alcoholicnprescription addict who spends most ofnher attention on darkly comical blitheringnabout the various do-gooder causesnshe espouses. Her husband, the missingnlink in the Walker generations, wasnkilled in a mysterious plane crash yearsnbefore. Clarice plays the role of agingnmaiden, while Jack lives aloof in a trailernin the yard. There’s nothing too pleasantnfor Sam to come home to; rather, “Infelt like the ‘cured’ explorer contemplatingna return to the fever swamps of thenupper Nile.”nSam does his best to keep his distancenfrom the family even while living in thenhouse. He seems to see his brother onlynwhen Jack is riding bulls at the rodeo,nand has only a litde more contact withnClarice. He spends a lot of time drinking,nconducts a strikingly sordid affairnwith Candy Fuller, his high-school girlfriendnand the daughter of one of thenOld Man’s most loathed political enemies,nand makes an oafish pass at Karenn