[The appearance of "The Withered Root"] in this country introduces a young writer of more than ordinary talent, and a book which, as a first novel, has penetration, grace of style and a scrupulous sincerity.

Mr. Davies has localized an important theme from the idiosyncrasies abounding in the "religious" character. His approach and perspective are, however, gratefully un-Freudian…. His argument is a simple one—that the revivalist or fanatic, before his soul has been clouded with sawdust, turns to God to compensate for the lack of a completed earthly existence.

No doubt the game works both ways, and an Elmer Gantry, a trifle fed up on heavenly love, will turn zealot only with respect to the fleshpots, but Mr. Davies foreshortens his hero's life dramatically, a little too forcibly, perhaps, but still at the point where his sincerity is undiminished and his soul remains as crystal to the eyes of the sympathetic onlooker. The situation in his book develops into tragedy, not sharply limned or objectively realized, but taking place in the etherealized atmosphere of a young dreamer's hesitancies and doubts, his sudden exaltations and swift, abiding depressions. His death in the end is rather a symbol than a finality; a symbol of the book's objective incompleteness, but acceptable enough as the final curtain call on what is especially vivid as a shadow drama.

The tale moves swiftly, dramatically, with evidences in its composition of a fine gift for prose and a sound technique….

It may be that Mr. Davies has gone too deeply into his theme at the expense sometimes of characterization and atmosphere. He realizes his world too completely through his hero's eyes, and the result, following from his hero's over-sensitivity, is an air, at times, of unreality. But no analysis of the book's flaws can deny it the power and distinction of its straightforward candor. It escapes above its own limitations simply through the vividness of its very apparent sincerity. As a first novel it is an achievement.