scraps at his mother’s insistence and tells himself, “It was the same as getting into icy cold water. If it was the end, if the Pig-man seized him by the hand and dragged him off to his hut, well, so much the worse.”

Although his fear has a comic effect, it teaches the central lesson of the story. Once he has faced the Pig-man and found him harmless, he returns home to be put off when he asks his mother and his new stepfather why his father cannot live with them. Lacking Eric’s courage to face up to problems, they hedge instead of answering. The viewpoint of the child generates humor and provides insight into the deeper weaknesses of adults; still the concluding irony is too heavy.

“King Caliban”

This powerful story may well be Wain’s most widely read on both sides of the Atlantic. Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, it leads off Death of the Hind Legs, and Other Stories, his second collection, just as it does his fourth, King Caliban, and Other Stories. Despite a predictable outcome, the story is effective because of the flashback narration of the cocky, street-smart Bert, who takes on caretaker duties for Fred, his older brother (“as strong as three men and as honest as daylight”). “Short of grey matter,” Fred works as a handyman in the same office managed by his wife Dorene. To make more money, brother and wife inveigle the gentle Fred into professional wrestling as King Caliban (“some kind of monster on a desert island”). Neither can understand Fred’s simple moral outrage at the gratuitous violence and bloodthirsty taunting. First, the anguished Fred injures an opponent and later nearly kills a heckler. Bert walks away from the situation unscathed and uncomprehending, leaving his bewildered brother to face the consequences. The strength of “King Caliban” is its deft interlocking of two major themes, corruption-of-innocence and innocence-of-corruption, within the narrative without commentary.

Death of Hind Legs, and Other Stories

Death of Hind Legs, and Other Stories also contains two stories of adultery—“Come in Captain Grindle” and “Further Education”—in which Wain captures the casual, amoral sordidness of contemporary mores. The issue is not simply sexual. At their core—in “King Caliban” too—is the willingness to manipulate people for personal ends. In “Giles and Penelope,” a young woman comes to realize that her lover uses her as a pawn. In the end she demands to be treated as what she in fact is—a kept woman. At first appalled, Giles finally accepts, excited by the prospect of using, then discarding, Penelope, when it suits him.

The stories in The Life Guard, Wain’s last important collection (his third) are more sophisticated than the earlier ones. In the title story there is overdone irony in the death of Hopper, who actually drowns when he is supposed to be acting out the part to make Jimmy look necessary as lifeguard. Despite the unrestrained turn of plot, the story achieves substance and interest as the narrative lets the reader see Jimmy’s desperation. As a dull boy, he is in his element when he gets the job of lifeguard at the beach. He fears the future and lacks ambition, but he has skill and confidence in the water. Eager to prove that he is useful on the calm shore, Jimmy decides to win attention by appearing to save Hopper’s life. When he sees that Hopper really is in trouble, he is faced with exactly the kind of test he had been waiting for all summer, only he fails, and Hopper dies. In Jimmy’s moral and physical agony as he brings Hopper to land, there is considerable dramatic energy—almost enough to make the reader overlook the predictable conclusion.

“While the Sun Shines”

Another story from the collection, “While the Sun Shines,” shows considerable control and is one of Wain’s best stories by far. The conflict here between the tractor driver, the unnamed first-person narrator, and Robert, the son of the absent farm owner, is well drawn. First-person narration is particularly appropriate because the external conflict of the story is secondary to what goes on in the narrator’s mind. Another man was seriously injured when the tractor overturned as he tried to mow a dangerously steep hill. When Robert orders the narrator to try the same task, he refuses more out of spite than fear. Later, however, he takes on the challenge, not for Robert’s sake, but for his own, and possibly to impress Robert’s roving wife Yvonne. The appeal she holds for the narrator adds a subtle dimension to the story. Although he knows she is a woman who uses men, she appeals to him more than he will admit. Thus in retrospect there is a question as to whether the narrator mastered the hill entirely for himself, as he thinks, or for Yvonne as well. Because he professes contempt for her throughout the story, his yielding to her at the end is a surprise, but a very effective one. The man who tells the story is ironically unaware of his own motives. He concludes, “What could I do? Another time, I’d have gone straight back to Mary and the kids. But today I was the king, I’d won and it was a case of winner take all.” He goes from the tractor to her bed, and there is some question as to who has really won the day. The strength of the piece lies in what Wain does not say outright.

There is no doubt that Wain’s concern as a writer is well placed; the problems he chooses to present are significant. The weakness in his short stories is a lack of restraint. When he makes the necessary effort to say less explicitly and more implicitly, his stories gain the light touch and resonance that mark good writing.