GOOD FIRST NOVEL
THE SECOND HAPPIEST DAY, by John ar ate Michael Joseph, English price HIS first novel is a long panning shot of American upper and middle class youth. It follows the lives of its principal characters through an expensive public school to Harvard and war service and back to New York. The conventions of the new aristocracy of wealth, the codes and rituals of its youth are highlighted with wit and irony. The writing is fresh, sensitive and remarkably visual.. It evokes the familiar legends of American magazine advertisements: the smiling girls grouped~about the latest car from the assembly lines at General Motors, the confident male in a Brooks Brothers’ shirt, or the healthy tanned face that goes with a cashmere sweater and tennis racket. Inevitably the publisher compares the author with Scott Fitzgerald. But. although Mr. Phillips has, seemingly, in his first attempt mastered the novelist’s trade, he lacks the depth of feeling and the tragic sense of Scott Fitzgerald.
J.R.
C.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540226.2.25.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 762, 26 February 1954, Page 13
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165GOOD FIRST NOVEL New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 762, 26 February 1954, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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