NEW NOVELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18949, 21 February 1925, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEW NOVELS.

Sailors' Wives flfodder and Stoughtoii), by Warner Fabian. "1 lie nut tun of "I 1 laming Youth. ' to which the book under review is in some sort a sequel, has adopted the li<>m dc guerre of Warner Fabian, which conceals til" identity (accoiding to his publishers), of "one of the most important and serious minded novelists in America.' If Ibis is the ease, then the adoption of a disguised name shows him to be possessed of at least a remnant of decency and soil-lexpect. bill these qualities end on the title-page. "Sailors' Wive.-* " is even more than its predecessor, merely the record of wallowing in the nine of ~e\. As a story it u wearisome to the la.-t degree, and the characters (save the mark!) all tall; a particularly hideous brand oi American slang. " Men of the Night " ''Hnhcr ( nwin). bv l'ay Cordon, is a story of the stereotyped "crook," <lass. whet" the arch criminal, black Wolf, show:, by a magnificent act of self-sacrifice that "hearts just as pure and fair" can beat in the under as in the upper world. "The Lone Winter" fllodder and Stoughtoii). by Anne I.osworth Greene. This sparkling record of a solitary winter on an American larru conies like a whift of clean mountain air after a prolonged experience of the murky atmosphere of crooks and cocktails. Winter is a hard time for a woman alone on a. farm, especi ally in a climate where the temperature is always below freezing point most of the season. Yet if if can be met with Mrs. Greene's courage, most ol its terrors evaporate. " It. is now six o'clock. Everybody is fed and watered and bedded arid framed and milked, benedictions pronounced all round, and the piano-lamp presiding generously over my fortunes. I feel, somehow, infinitely rich: brave letters from my child, plenty to eat in the house, plenty of books, plenty of writing surging in my head, and all the animals happy. That surely is a lot. Ihe woman who wrote that has surely found the key of contentment with life and its i problems.