Frederic Raphael
The Promised Land (Macmillan, £20) is Nicholas Lemann's study of the accelerated black migration from the southern states to, in particular, Chicago, with all its expected, and unexpected, social and political consequences. Full of specific stories (and sparing of statistical tables), it is in the lively and humane tradition of Oscar Lewis' The Children of Sanchez. Desmond Flower was my shrewd and generous publisher in the happy days of Cassell's. His chatty autobiography, Fellows in Foolscap (Robert Hale, £24.95), deals not only with the demise of that family business, after an aggressively incompetent American takeover, but also with the long and gallant life of Dr Flower as lover, profit-sharing Maecenas, soldier and gastronome. Byron, suitably enough, supplies the title. Barnet Litvinoffs enjoy- ably unpretentious and, as one might say, unhurriedly terse 1492 (Constable, £17.95) presages a fateful quincentenary: Columbus' legendary voyage and the explusion of the Jews from Spain. Outre- manche, I am enjoying Yves Carriere's fat biography of Roger Vailland (Plon, 180 ff).
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