Good Australian First Novel

The Australian novel has made vast strides in recent years— especially those that are produced by overseas publishers with an eye to other than Australian readership. The new overseas interest in the Australian novel is due, to some extent, to European migration to that country since the war, and to the fact that there are few acceptable countries left except Australia in which to have fast-moving adventures, real or imaginary. Anti-colonialism has killed any hope of having stories of white man’s derring-do in black men’s countries.

THE best Australian novels are those of fast action and Craig’s Spur, a first effort by E. S. Madden, is a very good example of this type —except for the concluding 18 pages which the story could well do without In this “Aftermath” the author tries to pull all the loose strings together and end off neatly, but in doing so gives the story a twist that is complefely alien to the rest of it Real life is seldom ended off with a straight line, and this fictional one might have been better if allowed to conclude after the finding of the boys whose wanderings in the bush form the plot of the novel.

All the action of the story takes place in the mountains behind Melbourne. Muriel McGrath, a neurotic female, suddenly decides that she cannot stand for one moment longer the broken-down farm to which her husband Robbie has taken her. She bundles her clothes into a suitcase, takes her two sons, aged three and 10 and the family car and sets off for mother and Melbourne.

T d° a h° id t Sf a ng rough b Titt?e n -used sbort-cut^cross s the Smains o join the highway lower down, and here disaster strikes. The car plunges over

the side of the road several hundre feet into the gully below. The chile ren are miraculously unhurt bi Muriel dies later that night. The nei day the boys start wandering in th bush and are soon lost. At home t Y search for them has already begun, Trom there °n His ffst-movir story of a dozen interlocking sul stories, authentic and not over-draw den ’ s ca i enc i ar there are only tv, 0 f women. He has the mother y n( j unc j er whose plain exterior bea a heart of gold. Unadulterate bitches he also has—but overlool t b e fact that both can, more ofte than not, live under the same fema hide.

The most successful Australn novels have been those set in tl “vast outback”. It’s a pleasant chani to see that stories just as mterestii C an be written about more civilise quarters of the continent witho spoiling the Australian flavour 11 ranges behind Melbourne conta some of the most ragged beau

a“ comparatively “short ‘ distance fro

.he U millions of Melbourne c*y. (craig’S spur. wm. Heinemarm l 21/-.)