A FASCIST IN FICTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 271, 14 November 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

A FASCIST IN FICTION.

NOVEL BY STACEY HYDE,

The uninspired title —"The Bus Stops at Binham Lane" (Cape)—is the worst feature of Stacev Hyde's novel dealing with the insidious spread of town into country. When 1* reda and Marshall Dyke first decided to build in Binham Lane, tliev chose it because it was at the end of the bus route and virtually "in the countrv," but gradually London stretched out its tentacles, touched and surrounded it and enveloped the fields and lanes with houses and shops. Twelve houses stood on every aero—"£3os for the plain type, £400 for the Tudor type"; shops, too," and garages and "Peerless" theatres sprang up where the hedgerows had been, and the dainty individuality of Binham Lane was trodden underfoot by the thousands of workers who came to make their homes there.

Yet it is hard to say whether the author's main purpose was to treat of this inevitable spread of population. The fin-ure of Marshall, nerve-racked and shell-shocked, is one that challenges synipathv, the more because his marriage with the. kindhearted but vulgar Freda was for him so exactly wrong. Marshall, caught inevitably in the net of eiicumstance, moody almost to suicide, yet dragging on through the drab routine to support his family, is a pitiful figuie. yet the most surprising passage in the whole book is his decision to join the Fascists and bis inspired reasoning out of his attitude. This is the feature that distinguishes this novel trom a host of .others that have dealt with the spread of population and the urbanisation of the country. Whether there is any connection between the two subjects, anil whether, for instance, Irene's rape and murder and the deliberate seduction of a minister had any real bearing on the development of the plot it is difficult to say. Much of the book seems inconsequential, but it is written in a terse, forceful and often humorous style that gives great promise.