Fiction
The Director. By L. A. G. Strong. (Methuen. 8s. 6d.) Phil Empresson. By E. F. Bozman. (Dent. 75. 6d.) Clues to Christabel. By Mary Fitt. (Michael Joseph. 9s. 6d.)
L. A. G. STRONG'S new novel, The Director, deals with an attempt at making a film in a remote Irish seaside village. Armed with a scenario, contrived from a novel written round this very place, the director arrives full of enthusiasm, in the company of his cameraman and the author. The latter, an Irishman, is more than a little anxious about the whole project ; he wants the film made, but knows all sorts of difficulties lie ahead. A possible obstacle is the parish priest, who complained of the book on its first appearance and went so far as to ask a ban on it from the authorities. But the young director has his own values and sees no real cause for wariness. He comes from a trade in which money buys talent, scruple, ambition and passion with the ruthless greed of an insatiable monster. They go to call on the priest and find him away from home ; by the time he returns the whole place has become a film studio, with several of his parishioners under contract to play important parts in the film. The priest is furious ; since he is a man of strength, the making of the film is quickly halted. The director, determined that nothing shall stop the film, which he sees as supremely important, summons his own powerful cohorts. While they are moving into battle array, a young girl, chosen from the village community to be the film heroine, kills herself. The director and his cameraman are largely responsible, since her motive is the outcome of their obstinate stupidity and blindness. The author has constructed a very readable novel out of a difficult theme. His sketches of a peasant community have liveliness and sympathy. Both writer and priest carry conviction. But the central figure, in spite of his ruthless exploitation of the simple and the sophisticated, the dangerous idealism of his religious
beliefs, and his homo-sexuality, never suggests mysterious depths of character but merely the flashing shallows of self importance.
On the other hand, in his prologue, E. F. Bozman attempts to sidetrack us with the suggestion that nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to his central character : " There, I thought, but did not say, is the recipe for a popular book, if only it is well done." Phil Empresson, one feels, will never achieve popularity ; it is for too uncomfortable. The book consists of odd memories told by a peculiar, bad-tempered, quarrelsome, whisky-drinking neurotic. The violent, unreasonable, unpredictable Empresson is the very antithesis of the average man. The book opens on the day of his father's funeral, April 5th, 1940. We are told of the ceremony, of the rector's surplice and how he smelt of good soap. Apart from a small legacy to the housekeeper, Empresson learns that he has inherited the whole of his father's estate. Going through some old letters that evening he finds one from his dead mother describing how, while still a child, he gave way to periodic fits of ruthless selfishness. While learning things about his father he starts revealing facets of his own complexity. Presently the reader is aware that he has a wife and a school-girl daughter, that his business affairs are in an unsatis- factory state. The air of nightmare increases with horrible steadiness. Empresson, having asserted violently that he will never return to his wife, does so on a sudden impulse. Anticipating raids on London he carts his wife and child off to Nottingham. Later on he is caught in a London blitz, which precipitates the breakdown which has threatened him for so long. A summary does scant service to this unusual novel, with its muddle of broken and tangled threads. Its weakness lies in the characterisation of Una ; since her extreme placidity is that of a sensible mother with a teething child. She appearing too early, instead of supplying the adequate contrast, turns a dubious scale with too firm a touch.
Clues to Christabel should please those who like odd murder stories. Christabel, a highly successful author, has been dead for some time when the book opens. She was the least odd of a peculiar family, yet was quite an oddity for all that ; not only was she a best seller, but she had kept a diary over a longish period, and, dying young, had left a very peculiar will. Grannie Strange got the diaries, and was grimly determined that her grand-daughter's dearest friend and intending biographer should never see inside a single volume. In the opinion of the old lady, Monica' Wentworth had given the gifted author a dose of poison. No one quite believed
i this, but it made the Strange's house-party feel more than a little uneasy. However, the police didn't appear for some little time; not until a volume of the precious diary had been stolen and Christabel's sister found dead with a cord knotted tightly round her throat. A little on the long side perhaps, but never a dull moment
for all that. JOHN HAMPSON.
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