Chemical Warfare

At Red Bend

Maybe it’s the post-war migration programme or a sub-conscious >s desire for elbow room—even if taken only vicariously—but jss our crystal-ball has got its wires completely crossed, we are or a boom in the novel with the Australian background.

HEN this reviewer was going through the teen-age period when reading becomes almost isease, a large part of the con porary literature had an African :ground. But where are those raphies of Smuts and Botha Cecil Rhodes today? Or the ies of the voortrekkers; or the of the Rand, the diamonds and ’s of Kimberley: the novels it strong, silent agricultural :h Africans and Rhodesians and itiful English girls? here are they? Gone. Read, dis ci ed, unfashionable. Anything is likely to come out of Africa y will be mixed up with culture- I, and race relations, and •theid. Deadly dull and no fun 11. it since Africa has become a e from which the nicest people their shrinking skirts, publishers i been quick to leap in and pre- Australia as just the place to :he vacuum. id we say publishers advisedly; e have always been Australian ers, but until the last decade of them have ever managed to other than a local publisher or cal audience. mes are changing—no month passes without one Australian ;1 or story, published in Eng , making its bid for public ur. Most are excellent, but ther Australia will ever have old glamour of Africa is ibtf u 1. We have no rogue bants or rampaging lions; our really wild life being confined rocodiles in the North, sharks Bondi beach and, perhaps, on-driven motorists on our iways. lis month’s piece of Australia the United Kingdom is The i Dusters, by Geoff Taylor, who a couple of other successful ds to his credit, although not :ralian-backgrounded. lis is not such a gripping or written novel as The Green k, which was reviewed here last ith but the author combines t of the ingredients—migrant lers, assorted band of small air t operators and authentic back ind—to make it acceptable and prehensible to overseas as well Deal readers. It would also make excellent movie script.

'op dusters or aerial spreaders phosphate are a well enough

known adjunct to modern agricul ture but what these boys had to spray was a swarm of grasshoppers which formed, millions strong, some where up in the dry north-west and in their own good time began to

move on the lush greenness of the irrigated holdings at Red Bend, along the River Murray, where it forms the border between NSW and Victoria.

The emergency raggle-taggle air force that is hurriedly got together to deal with the menace included all sorts from the perennial Wing Commander type, through the ex- Luftwaffe fighter pilot to the in cipient dipsomaniac. Together they make quite a team, and by delving back into their assorted pasts and histories, the author is able to take in a lot of the world not strictly Australian—a device which the late Nevil Shute also made pay hand some dividends.

As well as aviation, the novel also

contains a couple of love stori and a denouement that would ha thrown any but the most mode heroine into two loops and a ti spin, (THE CROP DUSTERS. Published Peter Davies Ltd. Australian price, 20/

The Wild Irish

WHEN Elizabeth O’Connor—re name Barbara McNamara wrote her first book, Steak F Breakfast, it was autobiographic and became an Australian bes seller. Her second book is set the same Gulf Country of Northe] Australia, but is a novel whic while giving more scope to tl accomplished writer, could have p' a novice through the hoops.

Most people have an autobiograpl somewhere within them; O’Connoi The Irishman, passes the tests ar proves that she has also got at lea one novel.

This is the story of Micha Doolan, growing to manhood in tl 1920’s in a decaying mining tow in the Gulf Country, his own inru conflicts the reflection of the larg« conflicts of the changing times ar how they affected his family.

Michael’s childhood was domir ated by his father, Big Paddy Doola: the teamster, and the tensions E generated within his own famil and outside of it. When Big Paddy living as a teamster was threatene by the advent of motor transpor he at first fought madly againj it and then went to the coast t sell his team.

He does not return and this ha a profound effect on the youngste who, unlike his mother, Jenny, wh loves Big Paddy but does not under stand him, and his brother Will wh hates him, both loves and is e\ rapport with his wild father.

Apart from its main purpose as I novel—to describe the sometime pathetic and sometimes amusini lives of this Irish family—the bool also tells the story of the settler in that grim tract of country soutl of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Thi author now lives nearer civilisatioi on the Atherton Tablelands behinc Cairns, but her memory and fond ness for the country that providet Steak For Breakfast is still quit( apparent. (THE IRISHMAN. Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. Australian price, 22/6.J

It’s Roses And

Old Lace

AMONG the autobiographies this month is one by a female rebel (see opposite) and a much quieter one by successful. 75-year-j old novelist Frances Parkinsoq Keyes.

Even the title of it —Roses in De\ comber —has a flavour of pot pourriJ

■polished antique furniture, ana ly New England houses. Not Frances guerilla warfare in the atains of Java; nor could you :ine her, under any circum ;es, being walked naked through streets by Japanese guards. ances was born in 1885, at the ersity of Virginia, where her r, John Henry Wheeler, was of the Greek department. Her er had been a young widow at ime Wheeler married her, and Wheeler himself died when ces was a few years old, she ied again. In those days, >ugh it was considered decent a widow to remarry once, to twice was not quite the thing, eccentric to say the least. ances’ mother, according to fashion of the times, was not jletely conventional in many js, and not only did she have * husbands but she had other imonial difficulties as well, and .ined flirtatious until nearly 90. ances, however, had a very er upbringing and when, in her ;, she fell in love with Henry er Keyes, who was 30 years her ir, she was, according to the oved tactics of the time, whisked o Europe in order to get over e cure failed, and at 18 she led Keyes who subsequently ne Governor of New Hamp , and then served three terms le United States Senate. was while they were living in aington that she began her ng career which has totalled, ill, 21 novels, the associate rship of Good Housekeeping izine, the editorship of the mal History Magazine and 3rous religious works. Mrs. s is now a Roman Catholic — oigh she appears not to have born one and was married in Congregational Church, e speaks four languages tly, has spent a great deal of in Europe and has been able luck the best from both the dean and Continental ways of As far as this story is con ;d, except for some foresight and there, it covers mostly first 18 years of her life up her marriage. abounds in names of cousins, >, relatives and friends which mean something to Americans know the social history of New and, but a great deal of it is aprehensible to an Australian can know nothing of it. netheless, it is a restful sort >ok, as it tells in a quiet sort of ler, something of the social ;s of the privileged class of dean at home and abroad at :urn of this century.

SES IN DECEMBER. Published by Davies Ltd. Australian price,