“AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4186, 15 September 1939, Page 8

“AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL”

REVIEW OF SEPTEMBER ISSUE. A ROUGH DIAMOND WRITES A NOVEL. Wandering around New South Wales in an old truck, picking up odd jobs, and at the same time material for stories, is a young Australian with a bright literary future. This is J. C. Esmonde, whose first full-length novel, “Lady Luck,” starts- its career as a serial in this month’s “Australian Journal.” Mr Esmonde, who was born in Tasmania, and classes himself as a “rough diamond,” has only recently taken up writing. He spent his boyhood years working on farms and orchards, and for a long time ■ was glad enough to take anything he. could get in the way of labouring work. “Lady Luck” is obviously

drawn, fromi some of Ml' Esmonde’s own bn the roads, and if the rest of the story is up to the standard of the first instalment,/ lire serial should be highly popular. In addition to the serials, there are no less than fourteen complete yarns of all types from humour to romance, so that seekers for variety are amply catered for. Notable among the short stories is “Derailed,” a railway yarn bv Jackson Harris. So far as we know, the “Australian Journal” is the. first publication to realise the settings for adventure and romance. Taken all round, the' September Journal is a very fine issue, well worth anyone’s sixpence.