SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 46, 17 November 1917, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"His Family." So much of (he present-day American i fiction is mere rubbish that it is n duty I as well as a pleasure to commend such a novel as "His Family," by Ernest Poole (Melbourne, Macmillan and Co.). Mr. Poole, whoso first story, "Tho Harbour," was bo well reviewed, now gives us a study of family life in New York. Tho story has a well defined, well carried out central motif, and contains . somo exceptionally strong character drawing. The. Gales are an old New York family. The head, Roger Gale, loses his 'wife when she had borne him three daughters. The first, Edith, who marries a smart young business man, becomes immersed in the cares of maternity, and recedes further and further from the family as a vhole. The second, Deborah, becomes a social worker of great prominence, conducting night schools in tho foreign slum area, and devoting herself, to her work with a self, sacrificing energy which leaves her but little time to spend with her father. The third daughter, Laura, typifies tho spirit of latterday New York, being pleasureloving, defiant of convention, and disquieting her father as to her moral future. Tho author traces the life history of these three women, and shows how it affects their father and tho family as a whole. Soger Gale falls on evil times, but his business is rescued by a clever young man, a more youth, a crippled young foreigner, whom Deborah had befrionded. More troubles come. The smart young business man dies, leaving Edith almost a pauper. The pleasure-loving Laura marries, is divorced in disgrace, and remarries. Deborah remains her father's comfort, but in time she, too, marries, and the end comes with good-hearted Galo passing peacefully away after having seen in his declining years tho family live again in his grandchildren. The literary merits of tho story are by no means 6mall, but the charm of tho book lies in Gale's pathetic faith—a faith, very happily, in the long run, justified by events—that "the family, which at one timo seemed hopelessly broken up, will becomo united in stronger ties of affection than ever" Here is at once a story that is full of. human interest, but neither vulgarly sensational nor cheaply and mawkishly sentimental. For its pictures of the changes brought about in tho Eocinl life of New York within the last quarter of a century, "His Family" is alone well worth rending. It is immeasurably superior to tho ■general ruck of presont-dny American fiction.