The Prism
by Jennifer Lash
Doubleday
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A Review by E. J. D.
The Standard
New Bedford, Mass.
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            The central figure of Jennifer Lash's novel, "The Prism," written when the author was only 22, is a brilliant British monk, Dom Lucius Trehearne, a member of the monastery at Credon Abbey.

            Dom Lucius is an intellectual, a churchman philosopher with a promising future, but he has a basic flaw in his character.  Despite his strong and abiding belief in God and his overwhelming dedication to his calling, he has never known a moment of genuine humility, nor has he ever been able to love anyone unselfishly.

            The novel is chiefly concerned with the changes brought about in Dom Lucius' character through his relationships with his elderly abbot, a saintly man; a young married woman, Isabella Barton, who, for a time, thinks she is in love with Dom Lucius, and Jonathan Sargent, a sensitive young fellow with ambivalent feelings towards his mother.

            Jonathan idolizes Dom Lucius and seeks his guidance and affection, only to be rebuffed with tragic consequences.

            Miss Lash's title is derived from her final paragraph:  "Such is the climate of belief, a prism held in the Creator's palm, where each man, a crystal slant, varies in clarity and capacity -- a mosaic of men refracting light from the Light which all being is."

            Although Miss Lash's novel has some defects -- a style that is sometimes too oblique and an often annoying choppiness of structure -- she displays a decided talent for characterization for evoking the atmosphere of daily life in a monastery, for underlining a significant theme.

            In fact, "The Prism" is good enough to make most readers look forward with pleasurable anticipation to Miss Lash's future work.