BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

THREE MODERN ROMANCES

(By

U.S.)

“Rooks Build Low,” by Revel Harding. Skeflington & Son Ltd., London ; Wnitcombe & Tombs, Wellington; A. J. Fyfe I Ltd., New Plymouth. “Sunshine Lane,” by F. E. Mills Younsr. John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd., London. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., Wellington , A. J. Fyfe Ltd., New Plymouth. “The Glengarry Girl,** by Ralph Connor. John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd.. London. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., Wellington, A. I J. Fyfe Ltd... New Plymouth. ! Miss Revel achieved considerable success with her first novel “Aftermath” and in “Rooks Build Low” there is the same faculty for graphic description and sympathetic character drawing that made her first book so popular. It is the story of a middle-class family in England. They are feeling the pinch of the years of depression, and Faith Masterton was finding it easy after seven years of happy and uneventful married life to reach misunderstanding with her husband Phil. “It needed all her self control sometimes to cope with Phil, . ana yet to their friends they were an ideal couple ‘made for each other’; it was a perfect marriage.” Its imperfections were the more apparent to Faith. Therefore when Phil seems to subordinate everything else to business his wife sees in it a cooling of his affection for her. So out of trivialities real tragedy is born. There are acquaintances kind and unkind ready to add their influence to the unrest, and so the difficulties increase until divorce seems the only way out. Faith goes into the country to live and “it was as though she had stepped out of life, life as ordinary beings knew it day by day, and had been permitted to go into the wings. The audience of the theatre saw the whole effect, the finished product at .one glance; only those behind the scenes knew the endless detail necessary to make up the whole the art with which the players were seen always to advantage and the stage never inactive.” Faith finds her way back to ordinary life, though it is no easy going. Her wanderings before and after her divorce bring her into touch with many people and the minor characters are drawn with rare sympathy. “Sammy” the rouseabout, Judith, the ultra-modem young woman, “Frosty” the devoted admirer of Faith and Phil, Max Owen, too selfsatisfied to be a thorough villain, all these and more are etched with definiteness and skill that adds considerably to the charm of this interesting and entertaining volume. * * • • There is little introspection about “Sunshine Lane.” Miss Young has written a bright, cheery yarn of a working class family in a small English town who win an Irish sweepstake and proceed to “see life.” George Reed, a builder’s labourer, was out of work almost as constantly as he obtained a fresh job. As usual it was Mrs. Reed who kept the family, George, Leslie and Lil, their children and “Grandfer,” George’s father, in food and clothing, though Grandfer’s old age pension helped. The picture of such a family’s life is well drawn. The Reed family can be regarded as typical of thousands in England who have struggled through the dark days, of the depression there. . . Lil Reed is dainty, innocent and kindhearted. She is “walking out” with a young farmer, and her brother Leslie with a dancing teacher when George Reed one day “came in stealthily, on tiptoe almost, and, closing the door quietly behind him, shot the bolt, and turned upon his astonished family a countenance, pale and so charged with emotion—bursting through, as his wife phrased it—that it brought her heart into her mouth, which certainly was not the natural position of* that organ. ‘Mercy on us! Whatever is it now ?’ she asked. ‘l’ve drawn the favourite in the Irish sweepstake,’ he said in tones scarcely above a whisper. Something snapped in Mrs. Reed. She bumped the kettle down on the stove and faced about sharply. ‘Well, you needn’t act as if you’d stolen it,’ she rejoined tartly.” The favourite won, and the Reed family found themselves on the crest of the wave of popularity. The only ones who did not join in the chorus of congratulations were “Bill” Lil’s farmer boy, and Jennie, who had been until then Leslie’s “young lady.” Her children were to have their chance decreed Mrs. Reed. Lil becomes “Loma” with a pedigree running back to the Loma Ridd of “Loma Doone” fame, and Leslie is told he and his sister are to mix with the aristocracy henceforth. The family sets off on its travels, and “Loma” really does attract an impecunious baronet. The Reeds find travel and money do \ not mean all there is in life. George is bored stiff, and says so, and a return to the old home is welcomed by them all. Even there, they find that it is only when they use it to develop their real personalities that enjoyment comes, even though it meant the sacrifice of social ambitions. “Sunshine Lane” is a pleasant yam that is as refreshing as its title. « « * * There is sunshine also in “The Glengarry Girl” though the book is stern in places. Mr. Connor never hesitates to pomt a moral, and as he is dealing with Canadian business affairs during the period of wild speculation that preceded the slump,in the United States he has plenty of opportunity for warning humanity against the sin of covetousness.

The Glengarry Girl is just as charming and beautiful in face and character as Mr. Connor likes to make his heroines. She has the care of a business left her by her father, and she rims it on cooperative instead of proprietary relations with her employees. But it is the day of “mergers” and boom. Sylvia sells to the big organisation, though on terms that prevent spoliation of her methods. Her sweetheart, a young stockbroker, is caught in the excitement of the stock market, against the evils of which the strong Scottish padre Mr. Connor can always describe with such relish thunders warnings that are unheeded until the crash arrives. But the Canadians were no cowards when their fortunes disappeared like mist. Jack and Sylvia face the future bravely and there are brighter days ahead. If there are some happenings that rather strain credulity “The Glengarry Girl” is sure to appeal to all who like a simple, straightforward story with plenty of action, and the certainty behind its perusal that in the end truth and justice will triumph.

Some good titles in four shilling novels. The Gap in the Curtain (John Buchan), The God That Answers by Fire (Joseph Hocking), First Night (Lorna Rea, the author of Six Mrs. Greenes), That Man Returns (a good mystery story by Gerald Fairlie), The Shiny Night (Beatrice Lunstall), Small Rain (Leslie Storm), • and several books by Grace Richmond and Olive Wadsley. A. J. Fyfe Ltd., “The Book People,” Phone 1397, New Plymouth.*