MR NORMAN LINDSAY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 111, 7 April 1930, Page 5

MR NORMAN LINDSAY.

PUBLICATION OF NOVEL. STORY OF MINING TOWN. Mr Norman Lindsay’s first novel, “Red Heap,” which is expected to be one of the outstanding events of the spring publishing season, has been Eublished by Messrs. Faber and Faber, ondon. The locale of the novel is a small goldmining township . near Ballarat, and the period is 1896, when the township prosperity had departed. The story deals with tho members of a family named Piper, who own the town’s drapery store. Their weaknesses and crudities are the subject of a remorseless, sardonic study. Two sisters in the early twenties and their 19-year-old brother are tho chief characters. The boy’s adolescent thoughts and actions occupy a considerable portion of the book, and there are several unsavoury incidents and conversations. On the whole the novel is a cruelly clever caricature of life in a small township, its peoples; and lives, rather than a true portrait. Like most caricatures, it depends for its success on over-emphasis of the bad points, to the neglect of the good features of the individuals in the story. It is impossible to deny the cleverness of the writing, and the facile workmanship and sharpness of the characterisation. The publishers’ belief that it will attract considerable attention will probably be endorsed by tho reading public, says the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald.