"A Summer Place" is much better written than "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit." The trouble is that this craftsmanship serves a conception of life that will not stand examination. At its heart is a conviction that only the self-made man is a "builder." He builds society, of course, or at least "makes" money, but above all he builds the loving domestic community. In their big moments, Mr. Wilson's admirable people walk naked on beaches, feeling themselves washed of years of falseness. But most of the time they are too busy with domestic problems of a high-grade soap-opera kind for such indulgences.

On one side of them stand the aristocrats like Bart Hunter, who thinks no gentleman makes a point of winning or working and is a pessimist. On the other side stand the narrow-minded, hasty-minded, lower-middle-class people who love respectability, Airwick and spayed cats. All these...