The Simple Truth, Elizabeth Hardwick's second novel, follows the trial of the boy, Rudy Peck, in order to describe and to judge the efforts of those trying to find out what happened that night, and why. The reader receives information as it is given the jury, which represents society. But he also is made privy to the speculations of two individual observers at the trial, a man, Joe Parks, and a woman, Anita Mitchell. The townspeople, who staff the jury, are, says Miss Hardwick, "utterly of this world," while Parks and Anita, who belong to the university, are in a sense "sophisticated." This double contrast between group and individual, simple and sophisticated is maintained throughout the story.

But beneath these contrasts is a common denominator: all these people, in the author's view, are pretentious fools. The jury, in its simple way, succumbs to sentiment and accepts an unsatisfactory...