Written without laughter

Press, 14 August 1976, Page 15

Written without laughter

The Love Contract. By Margaret Sutherland. William Heinemann. 227 pp. N.Z. price $8.95. (Reviewed by Tui Thomas) If only Margaret Sutherland had raised a laugh somewhere to break the grey monotone of this particular “love contract” it would have made much more enjoyable reading. The story is about personal relationships — granted, a serious matter — but the magging boredom of New Zealand suburban life and a Roman Catholic heroine’s fear of another pregnancy have been done to death in magazine short stories. We have heard it all before or suffered it. The Auckland author defines her characters well and writes convincingly. It is quite likely that many young mothers with not enough interests outside their homes may enjoy identifying with the women of Comfrey. Margaret Sutherland was awarded the Katherine Mansfield Award for short stories in 1973. Her first novel, “The Fledgling,” won the Freda Buckland Literary Award for 1975. But it is hardly likely she will win a prize with “The Love Contract,” said to be the first in a sequence on human growth.