NEW NOVELS

Southland Times, Issue 23047, 14 November 1936, Page 13

NEW NOVELS

A Chivalrous Outlaw

Happy Jack. By Max Brand. Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 'London. English price 7/6 William Kinney, famed as a marshal throughout the United States, is discussing cabbages and kings with a University professor on vacation when the talk swings round to the elements of greatness in man. The professor has a theory that men are much of a muchness at the core and that some explosion in their nature is necessary for them to rise to success and fame. “The component parts of gunpowder, charcoal, sulphur, saltpetre, are not harmful; even when mixed they are only potentially strong,” argued the professor. “But drop a spark on the powder and what happens?” He then made the analogy with human beings. “You mean that everyone’s about the same until he’s given the kick?” inquired the marshal, before he hotly opposed the theory. It was this conversation that changed the life of young Jack Aberdeen, a carefree cow-puncher whom everyone called “Happy Jack.” For the marshal was piqued into playing a trick on the youngster to disprove the professor’s theory. But the explosion which occurred was so great that blood was spilt and Happy Jack rode into the hills with a price on his head. And after him rode the marshal, famed hunter of men who never returned empty handed. With great skill Max Brand draws his picture of these two men, each admirable in his way and each destined to work out the other’s salvation. Long, arduous and perilous are the paths they take before there is reconciliation between them. Under-, lying the grimness of the story is the chivalry of the West, and as a relief from straight shooting, hard riding and relentless pursuit there is the fun of Happy Jack and the love of Kate Marvel. Of the many exhilarating Western tales written by Max Brand his latest must rank as one of his very best. Everyone who likes this type of book should become acquainted with Happy Jack immediately. Novels By Women “All Quiet at Home.” By Josephine Kamm. Longmans, Green and Co. English price 7/6 “Rumfustian.” By Judith Fay. J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd. English price, 7/6 The first of these novels deals in the simplest possible way with the escape of Penelope Cameron, a young and attractive married woman with three children, from the monotony of her London suburb, the stolidity of her rather charming husband, and the worries of trying to make both ends meet on an income rather less than is necessary for comfort. Penelope finds release in the company of a business acquaintance of her husband, a commonplace, trite young man, whose charms pall before long and Penelope realizes that her own little domestic circle really offers her a good deal more than she understood. The Oxford Group movement, mildly satirized, plays a prominent part in the story. The second novel is also very probably a first novel. But it is a far more ambitious one than the other and is far more successful. Those people who like Thorne Smith’s books will probably enjoy this, which deals with the attempt of the Nankeen-Fustian family—all young—to adjust themselves after their father’s death, to a greatly reduced income. The reader moves amid a maze of blue-blooded, rather grotesque titled individuals and indolent young men with clever tongues. There is some amusing unconventional phrasing to be met with—“ Lise was very hungry; her inside was making strange little sounds like the chirruping of a guinea-pig”— and all ends well. An entertaining book. Farnol’s Latest A Pageant of Victory. By Jeffery Famol. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London. Our copy from Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd. English price 7/6. Few modern writers can invest the past in as much happy romance as Mr Jeffery Farnol. The series of consistently good novels which has come from him is testimony of his ability to clothe incidents and characters of far-off days in a guise that makes them very good entertainment in modem times, and he has gained a wide and appreciative reading public. Many of his happiest stories have had as their background England in the days of the first Georges in which prize fighters, noblemen in debt, hard-hearted landlords, and very likeable heroes and heroines moveaccording to Mr Famol —in at atmosphere partly Arcadian and always refreshing. In his newest novel “A Pageant of Victory,” Mr Famol has changed from the English to the American scene, created not one hero but three, and written a saga of generations of one family. It is the family saga of the Falconbridges, from Anthony the first who helped George Washington to beat the red-coats, to his modern descendants. Anthony the first lived in the days of the first Georges and he is a perfect example of Mr Farnol’s conception of an English gentleman of those days—although he does turn to fight for the rebels. The first book tells of his wedding to his beloved Blodwen, his eventful days of fighting in the War of Independence when hostile Indian tribes added to the dangers of the English soldiery, and the final days of peace in the infant New York. Anthony finally dies in a duel, and Blodwen with one small son is left to strengthen the foundations of the young house of Falconbridge. Anthony the third dominates the second book. In addition to his own late romance he has to clear the honour of his son who has fallen in the Civil War, leaving a wife whom there was some doubt as being a wife in fact. In the third book Anthony the third is a very old and weary old man—more than 90— who comes from rest to straighten a love affair and save the business the house of Falconbridge has built up. “A Pageant of Victory” shows Mr Farnol at his best. He captures the atmosphere of three different ages, and though he skips 100 years at a time in the history of a family, he still retains the continuity of story, making it one book and not a collection of three unrelated stories. One thing many writers will envy him is his ability to make dialogue in a semi-historical book seem true to the times, and at the same time not stilted and strange to modem tongues.