A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20306, 13 July 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL.

"TORN TAPESTRY." " Torn Tapestry," by Miss Mona Gordon, a Now Zealand authoress, is a novel that strongly suggests a true family history. Explaining the reasons for fic tional names and imaginative details in ono of the books about his youth, Anstole France says that " no ono ever lied with a greater regard for the truth." One feels that Miss Gordon possibly could say the same of tho portion of her story which brings Joseph Thornleigh from Yorkshire to New Zealand, to the Auckland Province, and to the VVaikato, tho sceno of his great pioneering effort on tho " Wairero " run, through which ran tho Waihou beneath the Aroha range. Her national historical points are true and vivid —To Kooti's raiding and the Waikato War, for instance—and possibly family history may bo almost as accurate beneath the ordinary disguises of fiction. Whethor this be so or not, the authoress has chosen a difficult method if she is concerned lor the success of her work as measured by the size and number of edi tions —the only point where so many artists concede the existence of " the public." " Tho public " usually demands vivid characters, tho fierce clash of pas sions, action, and all the rest of it before it rewards a writer of fiction. Only the rare Galsworthy may write a family his tory embracing several generations, and still reap a rich harvest. Miss Gordon certainly makes conclusion with a pleasant love story, free from the modern craze for " flaming sex," but her girl, Audrey Deane, of fimaru, is the grand daughter of Joseph Uiornleigh, and tho narrative, until her appearanco, lacks the " lovo interest " which is evidently a cardinal necessity for most readers of fiction. For many whose lives are deep-rooted in tho pioneering era of tho North, there will be great interest in tho varying fortunes of tho Thornleighs—their contact with To Kooti, the failure of tho rich Wairere Estate before refrigeration gave stability lo land production, the flour mill, the Customs' bond, the pumice insulation venture, and tho succession of financial misfortunes. Some readers might complain that the New Zealand spirit is not given a place in these pages—that tho people and their affairs might havo lived in any British country, but tho critical reader in this couptry should always examine his own mind and try to ascertain whether, through habit, he fails to discuss in New Zealand books the romance that be accepts in stories laid in countries over tho sea. Ono is convinced that tho average New Zealand reader refuses to see in fictional characters of Tinaru or To Aroha the romance of similar people in Rhodesia or California. Thus the New Zealand writer of New Zealand stories is under a handicap with tho New Zealand public, which seems to havo an extraordinary _ appreciation for the very distant hills of fiction.