AN EMOTIONAL TANGLE

Evening Post, Issue 86, 11 April 1936, Page 20

AN EMOTIONAL TANGLE

"Return to Coolami," an uncommon book, is a profound psychological study. Though there is some dramatic physical action, it is of , secondary importance to its effects on the minds of the characters. The scene is Australia — to be precise, a three hundred-mile run in a car from Sydney to Coolami, taking two days. The landscape is quite remarkably well done, and it, too, is seen in its effect on the people's minds. The presentation of the story is not done in the usual way: a complicated emotional tangle is made plain to us by degrees through the fleeting thoughts of the four.people in the car, honest young Susan, Brent who had married her to "give a name"' to his dead brother's unborn baby, and Susan's parents. Brent thought Susan had treated his brother badly, so he could not love her. But she loved him; and the baby, on whose account the one-sided marriage had taken'place, had died after all—so what now? Danger of death points the answer, clearing away inhibitions and indicating where happiness^ lies. The parents, too, have their own problem, which solves itself on this journey. A good book, ah uncommon boolc.