28 APRIL 1928, Page 25

A PRESIDENT IS BORN. By Fannie Hurst. (Jonathan Cape. 7s.

6d.)—This exceedingly long novel describes the family life of a boy destined to become the leader of the United States. He is born when his mother is fifty-three and all his brothers and sisters are grown up and married. Dave, the future President, is only seventeen when the volume, closes ; but the fortunes of the whole Schuyler family have been vigorously handled. Rebecca, a Titaness kind of woman, might have a kind of heroic effect ; the extracts from her diary given as footnotes spoil that illusion. There is strength and abundance in the book ; but it is intolerably diffuse, and occasionally wallows in sentimentality.