Race

Race*

"Spazzums" Tricycles, Deferential Dukes The Story. Despite his flat, black, curly beard, which gave him the appearance of an Assyrian bas-relief, Mr. Heath started out in life as headmaster of a typical English parish school at South Barnet. He invested in a tricycle, to facilitate his trips from home to school. And he might have tricycled himself and his numerous family right out of this story, had it not been for his "accident." The tricycle hit a rock one day, gave him a nervous breakdown from which, according to himself, he never recovered. From the day of the accident he never did a stroke of work.

That is, hardly ever. When Mr. Heath gazed majestically around upon the seven daughters with whom, in course of time, he was blessed, he could be seen to expand with the proud air of one who has nobly done his duty.

The two elder daughters, Fanny and Kate, married off fairly early, are relatively unimportant save for one unforgettable portrait of Kate's choice, whose trousers are always so long that they adopt a "concertina effect" around his ankles. Lena, the fourth daughter, seems faintly reminiscent of Fannie Hurst's Lummox (TIME, Oct. 29)--a large, silent girl who moVes monosyllabically through the story and a length marries a rattle-brained young artist.

Hazel is of different stuff. Tall, scrawny, she has nevertheless a sort of elfin charm. She is afflicted with what she calls "spazzums in her mind," and lives in a world of her own imaginings, populated by fairy princes and deferential dukes. Later in life she becomes "literary," transfers the dukes and princes to foolscap, and eventually pours forth upon the English public a bewildering procession of sentimental books which win thousands of readers but never a reviewer's tribute.

Dozens of other characters swarm through the story--so many others that one has the uneasy consciousness of turning a page and losing one of them, as though he had slipped off into space.

The Significance. Here is a cross-section of one type of British life, portrayed with an observation keenly penetrating but rich with understanding. It is not the best thing the author has done, but it is decidedly good. These people are so real that one is sure Mr. McFee has, for our benefit, graciously detained them be tween the book covers for an hour or so, but as soon as is polite, they will walk right off the last page, through the back cover, and on with their own all-absorbing concerns. The style is bewilderingly and fascinatingly reminiscent of Conrad, Dickens (in the humorous passages especially), Flaubert, Tolstoi. Even through this land-story there throbs at times the surge of the sea and the pounding of his beloved ship-engines--for McFee is a seaman-author, ex-Chief Engineer of big passenger liners, and far too much in love with his surroundings ever to be wholly free from their touch.

The Author. William McFee is a stocky man, blond, with vivid sea-blue eyes. Son of a British sea-captain, he was born, in 1881, in a three-masted square-rigger, Erin's Isle, homeward bound from India. Educated in English schools, a prodigious reader, he found the lure of the sea was in his blood. So at 24 he qualified as Engineer and ever since has cruised about. Most of his writing was done in the Chief Engineer's room of his various ships and was sandwiched in between long hours with engine pumps, port boilers, bilge rams. Now, he has left the sea and lives in Westport, Conn. Among his books: Casuals of the Sea, Aliens, Command, An Ocean Tramp.

*RACE--William McFee--Doubleday ($2.00).