Page: I
Every author would like to be his friend
By RAMSDEN GREIG
THE CHINA: MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1958.
-18 THIS WHY THE BOY FROM THE MANSE BECAME A TOP-SELLER ?-
Mr. Tobacco Road talks
"America's No. 1 crucker-barrel
"CERTAINLY, my father would often marry New York reviewer hallied, an
child brides," said the clergyman's son. pornographer." "Ages 18 or maybe 12. He didn't like the idea. But, yeah, he married them."
Outalde, as we talked, the Noxt week Skinny Caldwell
(world sales--8,000,000) In a luxury oulle br Mayfair Mr launched as a fim in London.
Everyone knows Mr Caldwell,
mannered author whom
one
He lo the story-teller in the neat grey suit who has made hundreds of thousands' (£250,- 000 for his story Tobacco Road
the Deep
too) from the poor whites of
was
Yet as I pressed his belt ini
missing from my something Caldwell dossier.
THE shrewd blue eyes of "J.G." (for John well-bred honkkeler Bquare, seen his park story Gode title
Gideon) Wilson look at you through gold-a rose from Kerkeley Acre rimmed spectacles and a cloud of cigarette smoke. Erkeling me about life with He is the thy, freckled, sweet that Mayfair hotel there
("Skinny") Caldwell
Mr Wilson suggests you help father, He says: "In the book trade the name of Bumpus is world yourself to "a small refresh foroua.' What he docs not ment" while he tells you #a tell you is that was J. G. good the about George Bernard Wilson himself who made. It straw.". He says you will prob- Jamous.
ably find the gin bottle under J. G. Wlison. bookseller that pile of pamphlets, ITALIA= extraordinary,' elder sintermasi scripts ond frst edition.
and
of his trade, Is Bumpus. As "Shaw," saya J. G. Wilson, chairman of the arm he is, at "came 7 here one day 02 years of age, one of the most aziood me if I had a certain influential booksellera 12 the book by George Moore, 1 hap- business. They will tell you that pened to have a copy of the his personal word can make or book signed by the author, An brepk a book.
a gesture to a friend I offered Shaw the cutographed copy. It was thrown back on my desic with a grunt, end: "Won. I: prefer clean coplca"
'I go ahead' But John Gideon Wilson tells you in his soft Scottish accent "Ach, man, that makes me round Uke tyrant. Let's say that after almost 70 years in the business i know enough about it to get a new author's
• book selling
even it the reviewers are against it.
"It I find a book I live, but
one that has been
knocked
by the critics, I Just say: To
Tell John Gideon Wilson that you want to quote his optiicos of the angry young men ni British literature and there is a blast of some of the cholcer Scottish expletives,
So conceited
He light a fresh cigarette
Hell with the reviewers' and go from the tub of the Inst thead und sell it just the game,"
oce
Le says: "Most of them are 100 damned conceited for my
J. G. Wilion, son of a book- binder and book-folder, Brst king. No sooner do they flad started selling books In Glas-
success with a tiral novel than gow when he was 12 and a half they get fency Ideas into their years of age. He tyst "They bends. bald me four shillings a week. The mancy rose by sixpence a year--if you had the courage to walk fo to the boss and ask for it."
Off to London
By 108 he thought e knew enough about books to sell them to "the smart Londoners." The same day fifty years ago that he bought his ticket for Lon don he bought 2 31cence.
Ho
wedding
that today Bay's
his
memory is beginning to full him in feel, it darts vividly over the past. He con preface his tales of the book business with "As John Buchan or was it George Bernard Shaw-core told me
For the biggest names
British literature often called at his book-crammed den at Bumpus's to find how their new
"The trouble is that they pul these ideas into their second book--and ruin it!"
J. G. Wilson, who knuwa more about other people's books than anyone else in the busi- write less, his fund time only one of his own--a tie Bible of the trade called The Busincas Bookselling.
"As la I have little enough time to read all I want to, let alone writing pieces for other people to read."
At 82 J. O. Wilson still comes
into his Oxford Streei effee to work the same effice his staff.
hours a
"It's important, he says.. lo
the arrive at one's office in right frame of mind. I find the best way to start the day la a book with a cup of tea and
of poetry. I always read a verse of poetry before breakfast every
book were selling. "Sometimes morning."
they asked for my advice." nya Bacon with eggs, however, is George not a joke yohn Odeon Wilson J. G. Wilson. "Even Bernard Shaw was not above appreciates. taking it."
-(London Express Service),
ERSHINE CALDWELL.. author of Acro," talks with netress Tina Louise,
"God's Little She plays the
part of Griselda in the screen version of the book.
I knew that in America young Erskine, son of a minister of i small Presbyterian sect, had worked in poverty for Усат before getting a single short- story published.
I know that he had tried jobs at a lumber mili, at a pool-room, as a milk-roundsman."
And I knew about his tense phone conversation with the big editor who frst wanted to print
two of his stories.
Editor:
Would two-Bity be
all right? For both of them?"
Caldwell: "Two-fifty? I don't know. I thought maybe I'd re- ceive a little more than that,"
+
A single tense
problem......
Editor: "You did? Well, what do you say to three-fifty then? That's about as much as we can pay. Economic life isn't
very healthy now."
Caldwell: "I
guess that'll be
all right. I'd thought I'd get a little more than three dollars, and 50 cents, though, for both of them."
Editor: "I must have given you the wrong impression, Cald- well. I meant 350 dollars.”
Finally, I knew that, after all
the book-bannings, after his sleep climb to success, Caldwell is publishing in Britain this autumn his most surprising book of all. A book for chudren aged seven to nine endtied MOLLY COTTONTAIL.
But there was no answer in
of love
and turnips-
The ROBERT PITMAN book page
(Heinemann, 103, (d). They was never told the charge-per- are concerned entirely with haps because I had no visible single tense problem:-
means of support. WII The family manage to steal the sack starving Lester
"After three days and night of turnips held by Lov Bensey in a cell I managed to smuggle as he reats on their worn-out out a letter to my father. cotion land? Will Lov be' sum- clently distracted by the sex appeal of young, hare-lipped Elflo May Lester as she crawls panting towards him to enable the other Lesters to grab and cat the raw turnips?
Whatever the answer, It is not the way Jano Austen's characters/would behave.
"But when I finally got home with his help he just shook my hand and smiled.
"The only thing he ever sald about the whole thing wrot 'What did you think Louisiana, son?"
I asked: "Was your father well off?"
American novels of lust in tho dust.
There are many remarkable men who look back thankfully, to a childhood in the manse. They range from millionaires to
authors with sales at the million mark like Alistair Macican.
But perhaps Erskine Caldwell has reason to be as thankful as any of them.
Meet Mutt- He's Always The Odd Dog Out
Or take a startling chapter Caldwell smiled. "No. When from
God' Little Acro he first became a minister his (Heinemann, 9, 6d-Pan Books, salary was 400 dollars a year. 25. Od.). Rosurmond Thompson return from shopping ORG
But the regular practice, morning to catch her husband, colled 'pouting, was for Will with another woman her farmers in the congregation to sister Darling Jill. She does not bring us food and provisions. talk of divorce.
Nearly always thure were poor, starving people coming round to
very dog-like hero of THE Stingingly she lays about them him for money und food. Some both with a hair-brush; then times it he gave, say, pome a wonderfully charming book of DOG WHO WOULDN'T BE, she picks up a gun and forces, turnips to one man, I would peo reminiscences about family life
W
street.
I
INTRODUCE Mutt, the not
to flee, unclad down the the others fighting for them out in Western Canada by Farley
What would a Presbyterian minister say about that?
In the hotel suite in Mayfair, considered the Mr Coldwell question. He said "I won't
say my father liked all my books. But he believed I had a perfect right to print them. He took my part when they were banned
the dosler to a question which Tolerant in fanialised m How could the lòme of a Presbyterian minlater nurture a writer like Caldwell?
I do not think Caldwell is
his religion
side our door."
We talked about the morals of the Deep South, about legal child marriages.
Caldwell said: "I new all about such things as a boy. My father's
SCTIONS were more
about social questions than religion. Mostly he was telling the men to manage their crops and treat their families proper ly. He helped anyune, whatever Church they were in. He really loved those people."
He really loved them.
Mowat (Michari Josephi, 157.).
Mult was not antisfied with dog status. When the Mowat family wore goggles for a drive along dusty ronds Mutt wore goggles too.
When the car stopped he would push them up with his paw.
Mu liked cherries. Writes Mowal-
"At firol he had trouble with the stones, but he soon perfect- ed a rather disgusting trick of squirting them cut between his
front teeth.
"I shall never forget the bale-
"You sec, he was pretty
ful quality of the look directed liberal and tolerant in his re-
I suddenly saw that perhaps at Mutt by a pasenger on tha pornographic. His writing has glon-and in other things too. ter Caldwell's on 100. Perhaps the Okanagan River.
that may be the secret of Minis- little ferry in which we crossed true comedy, true pathos, But
"One time, when I was 17, he may not be reacting against it in hardly good copy for the
I got bored and ran away to his childhood at all. Perhaps it spectacle as he sat in the rum
"Certainly Mutt was « quaint parish gazette.
Louisiana.
is his father's brand of loving ble seat, his goggles pushed far "When I was trying to get pity that lifts the Caldwell up on his forehead, eating cher- work there I was arrested. I stories above all those other rics out of ·six-quart basket.
Look back over the first four chapters of Tobacco Road
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
TEETHPASTE
HOLD IT!
Sign Painters
By Harry Weinert
After each cherry he would ralan his muzzle, point I overside, and nonchalantly spit the stove. Into the green waters of the river."
"NICK IS A GOOD MAN---
IT'S A SHAME HE DOESNT
FOLLOW THE COPY-
22
WHO DOES
HE THINK
HE'S KIDDING ?*
HERE'S ONE, JOB WHERE
ARTISTS [MUST KNOW
HOW TO SPELL.
TRESPASSER?
WILL BE PERSIKUTED
TO THE FULL
EXTENT OF
THE LAW
AOT VERY PROFESSIONAL BUT
HE MEANS EVERY
WORD OF IT.
"LET'S SEE, PIZZA
PE-T-E-*
FRUSTRATED SIGA PAINTER
-NO ONE
PAYS THE SLIGHTEST ATTENTION
TO HIS WORK.
PRIVATE!
NOW SMOKING
JUST THE SAME, IT'S GOING TO BE Á LONG, LONG
LUNCH HOUR.
COUR, 1960 BY
COM TWOMANUAL MATE
KIOMTY RESERVED.
ES LU
IT'S BAD ENOUGH TO HAVE PEOPLE LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER WHEA YOU WORK-
BUT IN THIS JOB THEY STARE
YOU RIGHT IN THE FACE.
9-27
Lotty Shopp
LADMITTANCE
KEEP OFF THE GRASS
SOME DAY I'M
„GOING TO
REVOLT AND PAINTE
OUT A
TOOTH ON
ONE OF
THESE BABES!
SOME SIGA PAINTERS START EARLY IN LIFE-
IT'S A
GIFT
A Lesson Learned-
FROM the pages of Debreti comes delightful book. It is THERESEA'S CHOICE (Constable, 18s.), a novel by Rachel Ceell, sister-in-law of the Marquis of Salisbury and wife of Lord David Cecil,
As an Oxford don Lord David has written and lectured bril- lantly about Jane Austen. Now, In her first novel, Lady Cecil has brilliantly applied the lesson. Like any Jane Austen herolac Theresa takes on entire book in deciding which of three sultors to choose. Like a Jane Austen novel' her story turns tensely on unexpected letters, chancé invitations.
her
But there are differences. The Austen heroines
worry about chaperones, Rachel Cecil's Theresa is a girl of the late 1920's. Her worry is not whether she should meet a gen- tleman alone in a coltage, but how many nights she should slay there.
MADE A POINT
#
Then Jane Austen made point of never taking an entire character from life. And Rachel. Cecil? Well, you MAY know nothing of her girlhood Che married in 1932). But you may have seen Lord David Ceell on the B.B.C. Brains Trust.
You may
have noticed bla
ugh, wrinkled forehead, its long, nervous fingers, his re- semblance to a fragile, intolles- tual bird, his long, humorous eye...
Now consider the choice in love made by the heroine of his wife's novel. Of three possible Husbands she picks Edward Claro, a critic and the brother of a ford. What does he look Jiko?
"Edward's high forehead was wrinkled," writes Lady "Cecil. And shá describes Raclisi's first ́sight of him in those words;
"He unde extraordinary, look- Ing, she thought, almost bred 4way, but charming, Like” a fragile, intellectual. Birdə "His ; qyes were long to shape and Kumoruum. His long, fingere sonra mervokaly. - Tapping a cigarette.”.