New Fiction

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28702, 27 September 1958, Page 3

New Fiction

Girl On Run. By John Sibley. Cape. 250 pp. On leave in Kenya, Ludlow, a social welfare officer in the Colonial Service, emerges safely from a rather frightening encounter with a rhinoceros on a lonely jungle road, only to be plunged into an experience which changes the whole course of his well-ordered life. With the animal still in hot pursuit he stops his car to give a lift to a girl hitch-hiker who tells him she is an Italian tourist. They travel together towards Uganda, arguing frequently about British colonial policies—for which the girl shows 'a passionate contempt —and avoiding at her request the expensive European hotels at which Ludlow had - planned to stay. A sincere and loyal, though not too successful government officer, Ludlow is at first puzzled by the girl’s anti-British sentiments, but in spite of this, and her constant mockery of his somewhat conventional beliefs, a strong affection develops between them. Her beliefs and actions ire brought into focus, however, when he learns that she is “on the run,” having escaped from an internment camp for Jewish terrorists. Faced with the conflicting demands of loyalty to his country and its traditions, and love for this courageous, passionate woman alone in a hostile world, Ludlow has to make the most important decision of his life. Realising that it means sacrificing his career, and in fact giving up his entire world, he decides to help her escape. Their flight to freedom, through some of the most beautiful and rugged country in the world, is as exciting as any war escape story, and ends when, on the point of exhaustion, the two "elude their pursuers on a bleak mountain separating Uganda from the Belgian Congo. All this sounds like good material for a film scenario (which is .possibly what the author had in mind) but he tells his story with a good deal or conviction and compassion. Tins intelligent and well-constructed : novel is marred, however, by the author’s unfortunate propen- ; sity for slipping into pompous, platitudinous phrases and rather ■ too consciously contrived imagery. Girl With A Monkey. By Thea Astley. Angus and Robertson. 1« pp. . , x , . ' The action of this short but un- •• usually promising first novel takes ' place on a single day in a North 1 Queensland town where Elsie Ford has spent eight dreary months as • a school teacher. By means of ! flashbacks ’ the story of those ! months emerges. As an antidote t to crushing boredom she has had t a mild flirtation with a bank ! clerk, and when that palled had ’ formed an odd friendship with a > rough and touchingly simple roadworker. Harry has made pert severing efforts tp climb to her ’ intellectual level, but because she > senses danger in his groping, 1 baffled love, she decides to ask t for a transfer and thus take pres cipitate flight from the situation > she has created. On this August i day she has to tell him of her ’ decision, and somehow fill in the t hours befare her train gbes. As • she fears, Harry takes the news . badly, and appeals to her des--1 perately to marry him. The underlying threat of violence im- » plicit in his entreaties throws her s into panic and she spends the day i visiting her few friends, osten--1 stHy to’Say good-bye, but really 1 to evade further 'pursuit by him. 1 The characters are drawn with s considerable skill, and the life of ” the drab town, alternately sweli tering in tropical heat or. swept r by torrential rain, explains fully ’ this clever young woman’s re- - vulsion from' everything that has 3 gone to make it, and her choice - of.a friend right outside-its nari row social orbit. Her decision to t flee from an impossible situation - is wholly understandable, and - Harry’s fumbling attempts to dis- - suade her are charged with 3 genuine pathos. A tendency to -, preciosity mars an otherwise good s style, but this author should be s well launched on a successful 1 literary career. The Wise Children. By Christine = Weston. Collins. 384 pp.

When the story opens, twin sisters are meeting to celebrate their fiftieth birthday. One is a widow, comfortably situated, and retaining mueh beauty of body and mind. The other is a divorcee, rather raddled, and a dipsomaniac. In the widow’s household are a son and daughter. The daughter has written a novel that is accepted for publication. A deepseated three-sided conflict among the women is brought to a head by the girl’s book, which turns out to be autobiographical and a method of revenging herself on her mother. A full, well-told story is cleverly held together by the author as she leads her readers to a denouement few will anticipate. Her women characters are brilliantly drawn in both depth and contrast; the men are rather wooden, except the boy, Nick, who pulses with adolescent life? Christine Weston is obviously familiar with artistic and literary life in New York, but her best scenes are set in some of the city’s dives. Here, her observation of character and idiom helps to make scenes between intoxicated aunt and protective boy quite memorable. In this book, Christine Weston sustains the very high standard set by her “Indigo” and "The World Is A Bridge." The Gold Slippers. By Francis Parkinson Keyes. Eyre and Spottlswoode. 285 pp. Mrs, Keyes’s new novel concerns the love affairs of Prosper and Anne-Marie Villac, children of the Lavinia who was the heroine of “Blue Camellia.” The placid course of life among “the set” in a rice-growing district of Louisiana is disturbed by the untoward death of a Cajun singing girl, with whom several of the young bloods in the story have philandered. The investigation of this death proves to be the catalyst that loosens and brings up for exposure a host of hidden emotions. Addicts of Mrs Keyes will revel in this new offering from her pen.

Crescendo.- By Phyllis Bentley. Gollanez. 214 pp. Dr. Bentley sets this stoiy in Yorkshire, a part she has made familiar to readers of her many books. The story is built on the thesis that every human action has its . consequences, and. the impact of a trivial happening on

half-a-dozen lives is convincingly traced. The author has a gift for taut-sentenced story telling, but without creating the insufferable

staccato atmosphere favoured by less skilful practitioners in this school. As is usual with Dr. Bentley, her characters are mostly homely people, comfortable in their mental adjustment to life, people with whom the reader quickly becomes en rapport. 4"