HOODWINKED BY GIRL

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3941, 11 May 1929, Page 4

HOODWINKED BY GIRL

A SUCCESS-PUL BOOK. “STORY” OP THE SOUTH SEAS. America has been the victim of a literary sensation, conceived and perpetrated by a clever Californian girl (says a New York message). Late in February a book, “The Cradle of the Deep,” which deals with Australian and New Zealand waters, and notably Brisbane and Adelaide, appeared from the pen of “Joan Lowell.” The critics went into ecstasies over it. The Book of the Month Club gave it its imprimatur as the best book of the month. Its circulation quickly topped 100, - 000 copies.

The book was not a novel; it was an autobiography. The critics regretted it was not a novel, or that fiction could not be woven into such extraordinary experiences as the author passed through since at the age of 11 months, she was taken by her father to sea on his schooner the Minnie A. Caine. She said she spent 17 years before the mast, coining -and going between America and Australia. All the South Sea tales that thrilled the world a generation ago were mere nursery stories compared with this. The book had fullpage advertisements in the New York literary supplements. The author was feted and entertained by distinguished company, including Captain Robert Bartlett, who went with Peary to the North Pole 20 years ago, and avlio has been exploring the Arctic ever since. Captain Bartlett invited her to accompany him as second-in-com-mand in his attempt' to drift across the North Pole in the coming summer. She regretfully declined, as she said she -had to enter the “movies” at Hollywood as star in a filan, whoso scenario was written by her husband, a Hollywood dramatist. The New York Herald, apparently not satisfied with the book and its revelations, set about making inquiries. It was gathered from the owners of the Minnie A. Caine that, far from spending 17 years in the Southern Seas, the yessel was not thero 17 months, and that the author’s father was skipper of the vessel for not more than a year. The ship is safe in San Francisco Harbour, not at the bottom of the Pacific, where the book says she plunged after taking fire and giving her and the crew an opportunity to fight a dramatic (battle with sharks in their hid for safety. Miss Lowell was billed as a lineal descendant of the famous Lowells who founded Boston. It transpires ■that her name was not Lowell until about two years ago, when she changed it to make an effort to get into the “movies,” without success, until she married a Hollywood scenario writer. By a series of interviews the Herald lias traced the author through her school days at Berkeley until she graduated at the age of 17—the whole period of which she was, according to the book, fightmg the cyclone's of the South Seas. Her teachers say she was a very brilliant girl at school and that they forecasted a literary career for her. The author has not replied to the doubts east upon her book, except to .say that she was not writing the Bible, but was entitled to reasonable literary license. The book will continue to be the best seller, as thousands will want to read the production that hoodwinked the literary “highbrows” of America. The Book of the Month Club is disturbed -at its prestige having got such a shock, .but it, too, will survive the shock. The author is certainly assured of fabulous contracts from Hollywood.