Novel That Makes The Reader Laugh Out Loud

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 33, 27 January 1939, Page 12

Novel That Makes The Reader Laugh Out Loud

Fast Excitement On A Half Holiday

"HE ocean monarch, 8.8. Rucania, of 45,000 tons, and some odd ounces, was uncomfortably crowded with passengers and their friends. Fair women had brought brave men, and brave men had brought their stenographers. Clear feminine voices mingled with heavy basses. Excited screams rose from the assembled young. Frenehmen kissed each other on both cheeks. Taken on the whole, a seene of considerable animation, stuffed with human interest. Sweethearts were being parted, families torn asunder, and wives left weeping, and everyone in New York, who wasn’t too busy, had come down to the dock for a good laugh." One Laughs Loud In this style, "Half Holiday" is one of the most amusing books I have ever read. Not since [I browsed through "The Booming of bunkie" (A. §. MeNeil) have I found 2 book which made me laugh out loud, but "Half Holiday," with its impossible, but clever, situations, had just that effect on me. Joan Butler has a gift of describing characters which immediately brings them to life. For instance, Mr. Snecker " ... was a short, broad young man, with a red face, which looked as if it had been mauled by bears, a broken nose,

pale blue eyes, bow ftegs, and a rolling gait. This being the first occasion upon which he had vene tured from the land of his birth, he had devoted a great deal of time and thought to the matter of personal apparel. What he wanted was something bright and cheerful -something which could be relied upon to attract favourable attention in any gathering. In search of this ideal he had run to earth the suit he now wore. It was of a pleasing shade of yellow, marked out in four-inch squares, with a wide, green stripe. The effect, already arresting, was completed by bright yellow boots, a white panama hat with a purple band, and a green tie which had broken out in a rash of red rose-buds." The scenes of action in "Half Holiday" are laid in = Cornwali, where a young American cowboy-prospector-miner has inherited an ancient castle-a castle stocked with rare old brandy, Bootleggers come from America and disturb the peaceful Cornish villages. A pretty girl, an eccentrie servant, a bunch of avaricious relatives and a "bulb-eating vegetarian" all unite to make "Half Holiday" a most amusing bookone that can he read over and over

again:

W.F.

I.

"Half Holiday" (Butler: Stanley Paul, London). Our copy from the publishers.