NEW FICTION

Press, Volume C, Issue 29506, 6 May 1961, Page 3

NEW FICTION

Soldier in the Rain. By WilHam Goldman. Eyre and Spotttewoadc. 348 pp. Mr Goldman's first novel deals with an old and familiar topic—the humours of army life. This time it is the, American army In a state of suspended animation. The Korean war has just ended, add the Transient Company at Fort Scott is about to be disbanded. But the day of release is long in coming, and Eustis Clay. Maxwell Slaughter and Jerry Meltzer all have time to express their rather eccentric natures. Meltzer is sure he can run the mite in four minutes. Eustis is an expert at assessing and grading the possibilities of the girls he sees in Capital City. Slaughter is obese but likes to live dangerously. All three are united in a feud against the military police, which culminates in a terrific bar-room brawl in which no-one is left standing. But at long last the company is disbanded; the camp is closed down. Meltzer leaves first. Slaughter refused to be timid and dies of a heart attack before he can get away. Eustis is the last to go and finds that it is painful to close for ever a chapter of his life that has been boring, but remains in his memory as being valuable as well. The last pages of “Soldier in the Rain” explain the title of the book; but whether they are tragic or comic is something each reader must decide for himself. There is much that is appealing about the adventures of these feckless, cheerful young soldiers, and Mr Goldman is obviously an author to keep in mind. The Forest of the Night. By Madison Jones. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 285 pp. The author of “Forest of the Night” is writing about the frontier lands of Tennessee at the beginning of the last century. His theme is almost as unusual as the setting he has chosen. Jonathan Cannon has left Virginia for the wilds. Like his father before him, he is an idealist, and is in search of a freer, more noble life. Hardly has he entered the new States when he has an. encounter with a wounded Indian. It is a foretaste of the suffering and disgust to come. He is anxious to do something to civilise this frontier region: but in spite of all his efforts he finds himself mixed up with a band of horse thieves. Running through the book is his painful love affair with Judith Gray, which ends in tragedy. Jonathan seems to have lost everything. He narrowly escapes being hanged, but in the end he decides to return ’to the primitive school house on the edge of the wilderness end start all over again.

There Must Be A Pony! By Kim Kirkwood. Jonathan Cape. 318 pp. This book closely resembles “The Catcher in the Rye” in that it lays bare the confused emotions of a teenage boy.. It is the story of Josh, a 15-year-old youth told in his own words. His life is a series of tragedies brought about largely by the life led by his theatrical mother Rita Cydney. who is so absorbed in her ambitions to “arrive” in the movie world that, unavoidably her son suffers. Poor Rita is no more successful in her marriages than she is in her career. This is the first novel of an author who was born into a theatrical family. He has undoubtedly reached back into' his own childhood to write with sensitivity. humour and imagination of the growing boys feeling in an unstable environment. The tale is often tragic, but it is always absorbing and the writer evokes deep sympathy for Josh's longing for what his parent's peculiar circumstances has withheld from him—a normal, healthy life. This seems almost within his grasp when Ben enters the lives of the mother and son; the older man loves the boy and begins to help him develop character, a sense of values, and to give him the affectionate guidance that he needs. But once again the bottom is to drop from Josh’s world in a violent manner involving his “foster father.” This glimpse into the turbulent mind of an unsettled teenager is pitifully revealing. It is written with a skilful blend of compassion, hilarity. imagination and pathos and serves as a gentle is desperate for stable love reminder that modern youth and understanding. Portrait of an Officer. By Pierre-Henri Simon. Seeker and Warburg. 154 PP This novel, a translation from the French, may surprise some thoughtful readers. In its pages is found a contrast between the old and the new. a contrast of an unexpected kind. The principal figure is Jean de Larsan, who describes himself as belonging to a family that “in the precise sense of the term is noble; that is to say dedicated to bearing arms and to military honour.” With ideas of this kind he sees service on many fronts from France and Belgium in 1940 and after that in IndoChina and Algeria. The book is a series of dramatic incidents in which this young man—he always seems young —takes the leading part. In the end disillusion comes to him. As he says, “it is not easy to live Corneille in the century of Kafka.” Mr Simon has written a novel about the last of the crusaders. In French it may be better; in English it sounds unreal.

In My Father’s House. By Jean Detre. Gollancz. 192 pp. The recent inquiry into the methods of conducting a television quiz in the United States gave Jean Detre the basic idea for her first novel. Buddy Osborne's father is apparently a professor in Princeton University, and Buddy himself may have a junior post in a similar institution. He has had some success in television quizzes, and does not see that he is doing anything wrong when he allows himself to be prompted before the show. After all, it makes the contest more exciting for the viewers, and so far as the sponsors are concerned it is good advertising and purely a matter of business. Accordingly Buddy makes large sums of money. He can afford Italian suits, and when he marries, his wife Maggie comes from a family where Cadillac motor-cars, are taken for granted. In due course an inquiry is held, and Buddy is fairly certain he has given a plausible explanation of his conduct. The book really deals with the effort made by Buddy's father to bring him to a realisation of what he has really done. It is a tangled skein Miss Detre has to unravel and she sets about the task with patience and considerable analytical skill. “In My Father’s House” explores an interesting moral problem. Yesterday’s Hero. By Otis Carney. Hodder and Stoughton. 312 pp. This is a story that in its essentials is probably fairly familiar to everyone. Roderick Mackin had distinguished himself as a fighter pilot against the Japanese in the war. His style of living was lavish and carefree, and on the crest of the wave he married Kitty Royce, an admiral’s daughter. His difficulty was that he could not settle down to civilian life. None of the projects he envisaged came to anything, and after 10 years of aimless drifting his wife, very reasonably decided that she had had enough. But Mackin has a strip of land on the fringe of the desert of Lower California, and that in the end is his salvation. In the process of trying to get rid of it for ready cash, he flies a prospective buyer over the desert country. They are caught in a tropical storm and lose their bearings. In the finish Mackin has to bring his plane down in a forced landing. He is lucky, for no-one is seriously hurt, although the plane is damaged beyond repair. In the struggle to. get out of the wilderness 0 he finds himself and resolves to make something of his land, to do something positive and creative for himself. Mr Carney has written an absorbing novel.