NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 4

NEW FICTION

The Origin of the Brunists. By Robert Coover. 441 pp. Arthur Barker. During an accident at the small American township of West Condon, 97 miners are killed and there is one survivor—Giovanni Bruno. From these circumstances a fanatical religious group grows—the Brunists —as Tiger Miller, editor of the local newspaper calls them. The town is split into two factions and Miller, wh'ose newspaper is read by both groups, amuses himself by manipulating local feelings. He joins the Brunists to further his interest in Marcella, Giovanni Bruno’s sister, but the group does not trust him. Religious fanaticism is a difficult theme handled convincingly in this, the author’s first novel. The Brunists, , with the aid of numerology and psychic manifestations interpret even the most insignificant details concerning Bruno and the mining disaster until they convince themselves that he has been saved to announce the Second Coming, to be awaited on a hill near the mine. A date is arrived at and the plot culminates in a fantastic day of judgment in which all the fermented partisanship, hatred and hysteria in the township reach a climax during a violent thunderstorm. Miller is attacked and left for dead, crowds shriek and slither down the muddy hillside and people are trampled underfoot After the commotion has died down the Brunists begin a period of rationalisation and the threads of life are slowly picked up again in the township. The book is written in a style which is harsh and often crude. Some scenes are not for the squeamish, but it is a powerful book with considerable understanding of the undercurrents and divided loyalties of small town life. The Interloper. By Mary Howard. Collins. 191 pp. Mary Howard is a prolific writer of bright novels and those who have admired and enjoyed her earlier work will be equally pleased with “The Interloper” for it follows her familiar successful recipe. The background she has chosen in this novel is that of the advertising business and she sketches in quite adequately the cut-throat competition and the desperate struggle for the Symbols of success. The story concerns Amelia Anderson, secretary to a business executive, whose life has always been pleasant and easy. The interloper is Kim Flemyng whose life has been the antithesis of Milly’s and who seems at first to be all she dislikes. With this beginning, the end is obvious but there is nonetheless some interest in reading of Milly’s struggles to choose between the safe familiar way of life and the exciting unknown. One hesitates to write this off simply as another romantic story, for Mary Howard is more adept than most at giving some depth to her background and some complexity to her characters (most notably in this novel to Kim and Milly’s father). “The Interloper” can scarcely claim any great insight or profound reflections on contemporary life but it will adequately and pleasantly while away an hour or two. Parents* Day. By Edward Candy. Gollancz. 192 pp.

Edward Candy has already established himself as a writer of subtle perceptions and quiet wit, and in the present volume he sustains this reputation. The subject is a coeducational school in Wales, and such plot as there is centres on a concert, consisting of a quintet of Mozart which is to be given by five of the pupils on Parents’ Day. Onfe of them, Jude Pinnegar, is blastingly rude to another —Daniel Hardy—for the inefficiency of his playing, and in the manner of young people accustomed to be allowed freedom of expression, Daniel simply disappears from the school for 24 hours. Jude badgers his father on the telephone to take Daniel’s place, unaware that the latter has just received a deathsentence from his doctor. Owen Pinnegar tries to comply with his son’s wishes but is forced by illness to give up the attempt. One difficulty of assimiliating a story of this sort lies in the universal use of Christian names (even the headmaster and his sister are known as Matthew and Janet to all and sundry), and family relationships are difficult to establish in consequence, but the effort is well worth it in

the present case. One learns in time that Daniel's father and stepmother are writers of film-scripts about “teen-age problems,” and that his grandmother who lives with them is a nuisance to all three. This is the real reason for Daniel’s disappearance he simply wants to avoid them. A professor, Harry Branksome, and his wife Emma think of sending their eight-year-old son Robert to the school, blit the child hates the idea, and is terrified of leaving his mother, though glad enough at the thought of escaping from his awe-inspir-ing father. The younger pupils are particularly ’ well drawn—self-centred, uncontrolled, and trying to base their lives on, their own desires. . There is a pleasing absence of emotional involvement among the adolescents, though one girl is, in the odious modem phrase, a “sexkitten” and would seduce a boy if she could. Quiet commonsense is the chief characteristic of the heads of the establishment, and the coeducational atmosphere, as revealed here, though abhorrent to Daniel’s grandmother, is, on the whole, conducive to good manners and clean ideals. The Sultana. By Christine de Rlvoyre. Andre Deutsch. 204 pp. Christine de Rivoyre is a French novelist some of whose earlier novels have already been translated into English. One wonders if this latest novel was really worth the skill and care that Diana Athill has clearly spent on its translation. It must be admitted that the novel begins promisingly with a brilliant description of Solanze driving home through rush hour traffic in Paris; the frustration of any motorist in a hurry is cleverly and amusingly depicted. However once this tour de force of a few pages is over the book as a whole becomes dull and uninteresting. The sultans of the title are three in number; Laurent comfortably married to a rich and accommodating wife and keeping Solanze as his mistress, Michel who is Involved with Solanze's neighbour, and Leo, a producer, who is sought by Laurent’s daughter, Kim. These tenuous connexions

provide the excuse for an examination of the three relationships which while it is detailed in some respects gives tittle indication of. any truth or depth of feeling in any save perhaps Solanze herself. The story covers a night and day in the lives of the characters and some scenes such as the traffic jam already mentioned and one in Delphine’s night club show that the author has a perceptive eye for many of the absurdities of modern life. One wishes only that such high spots were more frequent in this novel. The Burned Man. By Bart Spicer. Arthur Barker. 310 pp. Here is a tough, taut, and up-to-the-minute story which will carry its readers on a tense ride and make them look for more from this author. The Rodelo air base

in Spain is leased to the Americans as a strategic centre for atomic attack when, where, and if “necessary. Not all Spaniards are delighted about the arrangement and strict security is maintained at the base under the direction of Colonel Perry White. The relationship between the two governments is polite but strained, and co-operation between Perry’s men and their Spanish colleagues in the military security service is a fragile thing. A man is found dying and thrown into a ditch near the base. He has been severely burned by radiation and nobody nows bow he came by these fatal burns. The Spanish havj no radio-active material but the Americans have plenty of atomic bombs. They know, of course, that an atomic bomb, unlesr perchance it should explode, is as harmless as a hen’s egg; but will the Spanish believe that? It could be that Communists, or others inimical to the Americans or to the Spanish Government, are bent upon scaring the populace into panic by leaving victims, similarly burned, near the base. Colonel White’s investigations and countermeasures lead to concealing the dead man, and to the descent upon the base of very high army people from Washington, of members of the State Department, the C.1.A., the Atomic Engergy Commission, and one vould not have been surprised to find old Uncle Tom Cobleigh adding to the flap. Although the base has been closed by a Red Alert, the Spanish officials find out just enough to be troublesome and the snarled skeins of trouble lead to Colonel White’s car being wrecked on a precipitous road and to his having to fight things out with two snipers. Eventually a largescale raid by American and Spanish troops upon a hospital brings the story to its gripping climax. The difficulties of living on such a base, the life and glitter of the near-by Spanish town particularly during a fiesta, and the creation of vividly-living characters have all been thoroughly well given to us by the author. There is a delightfully amusing twist at the end.