Short Stories

Press, Volume C, Issue 29524, 27 May 1961, Page 3

Short Stories

The Warm Country. By Donald Windham. HartDavis. 208 pp. Variety is the keynote of Mr Windham's short stories, which deal with people of all kinds generally in unusual situations. For instance the story which gives a title to the volume describes the unsteady balance of a friendship between a white and a coloured man. “The Third Bridge" follows immediately. It is the reveries of a young sailor just before closing time in “The Silver Dollar” in New York. He is dreaming of night life in Venice. "An Island of Fire." on the other hand, is a careful study of the psychology of a woman of artistic tastes, who is aware that she is no longer young and may appear somewhat eccentric to her contemporaries. More conventional in design is “Paolo." the painful story of an Italian who turns himself into a good American. The book is also remarkable in that the famous novelist E M Forster has written an introduction to it. Mr Windham writes the type of stories he enjovs. "They do not shout or fuss, they do not contain too much alcohol, and above all they are completely free from the slickness that comes from attending courses in Creative Literature. Mr Windham, I understand, has never learnt literature. He merely produces it.” High praise, indeed.