cover image Mamaw

Mamaw

Susan Dodd. Ballantine Books, $3.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-345-36297-1

``The story of Zerelda Cole James Samuel, mother of the infamous `James Boys,' Jesse and Frank, is told in an absorbing novel, '' wrote PW . But readers may balk at an occasional lapse into inflated prose and some won't buy the depiction of an otherwise moral Zerelda condoning the vicious brutality of her sons. (Mar.)