"Evening in Spring" is a light lyric story, half comic, half tender, which has to do with the ardors and the sorrows of first love. It is the story of how Steve lost his heart to Margery Estabrook while they were both still in high school and of how their young touching idyl—so innocent and so poignant—was thwarted by the meddling and the opposition of their elders. Because Steve was a Catholic while Margery was not, both their families did everything in their power to keep the two apart, hounding them with commands, reproaches, accusations and tears….
As one can gather, this simple, artless story is almost unimaginably old, and it would be difficult to freshen it into vivid life. Mr. Derleth, frankly, has not done so, and where his young lovers and their transports are concerned his book, though gently lyric, is insipid and monotonous. What distinguishes "Evening in Spring," what saves it from plain dullness, is first the author's evocative picture of a Wisconsin country town and second his humorous appreciation of character. Such color as there is in this novel is largely provided by Steve's eccentric relatives—from astringent Grandfather Adams, an old love of a man, to that appalling religious zealot, Aunt May. Here Mr. Derleth is in his element, and very funny indeed—but for the rest I cannot hand him so much. Perhaps it is time that he turned his eyes from Sac Prairie and from wistful memories of his boyhood and found something more galvanizing to write about.
Edith H. Walton, "First Love," in The New York Times Book Review, September 14, 1941, p. 7.
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