JOHN BRODIE’S MEMORIAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 13

JOHN BRODIE’S MEMORIAL

THE MAN IN OUR LIVES, by John Brodie (John Guthrie), new yp Neville Spearman, English price 7/6 A REPRINT of one of his best books is an appropriate memorial to an author. If The Man In Our Lives is not "John Guthrie’s" best, it is the one that brings John Brodie to us most clearly. The identity of the setting is now openly revealed. John Brodie’s name, besides his pen-name, appears on the jacket, and there is a photograph of John and one of a family group, including the father, the man in their lives. One can re-read The Man In Our Lives with renewed and greater delight (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued from previous page) -shadowed, however, by the thought of what John Brodie might have done. "People often said they had .never seen a more united family than ours, but somehow it was never taken by us to mean that this included father. He seemed rather to have been co-opted as a member, or to have been made a vicepresident because his subscription would come in useful." Am I mistaken in detecting here a new note in our letters? But with the irony and humour go tendernéss, affection and pathos. John wrote the book for the family to remember father by. Two friends, Alan Mitchell, and Nigel Palethorpe, contribute penetrating appreciations; "he will ever remain a very special man in our lives," says Mr. Mitchell. English critics’ praise is quoted, and the reprint is a Book Society recom-

mendation.

A.

M.