Fiction
An Attic in Jermyn Street. By Robert Henrey. (Dent. 10s. 6d.)
faults in a first novel. The story itself is simple. Three generations of native women in the Island of Trinidad have been ruined by the chance love-making of lonely English travellers ; from ambitious girls with their eyes turned to England and'English husbands, they are reduced to cheap sex and 'cheap drink. It is a familiar problem to anyone who knows the Colonies and the racial question as Mr. McLeish does, but it is noteworthy that he does not do any axe- then watches what happens. Julie, too, wanted to go to England. cannot get free of Trinidad, at least her children will, and with this aim in view she forces her husband (who is a pleasant-looking, easy- going half-caste) to expand his business with money she has inherited from her mother. By the time their two children are adolescent Julie entirely to them, even to the point of effacing herself and sending them to England to get the right education. Once in Britain the The Harp in the South. By Ruth Park. (Michael Joseph. 9s. 6d.) derivative, too consistently detached ; one feels the remoteness, the careful discipline of the author ; but these are small and inevitable grinding as, say, Mr. Sinclair Lewis did in his last book. Quite calmly, as though he is quoting facts from Hansard, Mr. McLeish salvation, makes her marry a pleasant and harmless cab-driver, and is one of the richest women on the Island. She sacrifices herself methods (or even acquire them once removed through Somerset Maugham) for their first excursions into fiction. Those who do- and with point. Adam in the Woodpile is perhaps a little too takes the case of a shrewd netre.ss who has lost her chance of IT is not often, unfortunately, that English novelists choose French es for instance Mr. McLeish—at least know how to write lucidly Now she becomes a woman with an obsession. If she herself
boy Peter, who is dark-skinned, and his sister, who is nearly white,
are ruined by the prejudice which they meet. One sees the bitterness, Eskimo Doctor. By Aage Gilberg. Translated by Karin Elliott. (Allen the minute injections of poison taking effect, the inward shrinking, the struggle, the fury and finally the tragedy. All this is handled and Unwin. 15s.) with skill. Mr. McLeish's wry, somewhat cynical comments A CERTAIN smugness and over-heartiness mar this otherwise ex- admirably reveal the characters—the journey on the boat is particu- tremely interesting account of the far north of Greenland. Dr. larly good—but his sense of atmosphere and scene are so far Gilberg, with his wife, left Denmark in 1938 to work among the undeveloped. Perhaps in his next novel he will allow his sensibilities Eskimos in a tiny wooden hospital at Thule, and returned just after
freer play. the outbreak of war. There were no other Europeans in this out- of Fleet Street in the manner of Sir Philip Gibbs, An Attic in lermyn reporter, and it tells of her experiences, both emotional and pro- fessional, in the hard-boiled world of newspaper-land. It is Street will please. It deals with the life of a " girl reporter " who, at first sight, seems to have few of the qualities which make a good of Marseilles (bribery, corruption, double-crossing), through Spain, war. The novel has pretensions to a " philosophy "—Tennyson and necessary. The badness of this book is made worse by the fact that Mr. Lodwick is intelligent and could write better.
professionally and exactly written without being out of the ordinary. overcrowded as a tenement on a Sunday morning, but she has con- out, whimper or scream, are those of human beings trapped like rats out, the only escape hatches, are drink, violence, death. It is a called Rumbold who would make a " hero " in a cheap American film look weak-kneed and precious.
France, England and Scotland. One is left both dazed and incredu- lous, for Rumbold as a character has no conviction whatsoever ; he is hard, utterly inhuman. In the end one cares little for what happens to him or the cast of sub-human types which are left over after the Henry Fielding are quoted in the beginning—but nowhere in the 242 pages of slick cross-fire conversations is it either apparent or trived to give it life. The voices, whether they shout insults, cry Mr. Lodwick writes carelessly, almost conceitedly, of a character in a way of life which offers very little hope or beauty. The only way
sombre conclusion, but an inevitable one. ■ For those who like a competently made, sentimentally told story Brother Death is something of ah affront to intelligent readers. It goes on like that, mechanically, speedily, through the underworld
for it. We've been useful to each other. We've had some good times.
Right . . . it's over now and we cut the painter." .
" I don't go much for sentiment," said Rumbold, " I don't care
ROBIN KING.
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