I was looking for information on an entirely different author when I came across the name Howard Spring. So far information about Spring has been sketchy but it sounds as though he was a very successful and popular writer publishing books from the 1930s through the 1960s. He began his career as a journalist and book reviewer before becoming a full time writer in 1939. I should probably have chosen one of his more famous books to share, My Son, My Son, but to be honest the two I brought home with me appealed to me a little more.
Shabby Tiger was his first novel, which came out in 1934. It was followed by a sequel, Rachel Rosing. When I came across two very brief blurbs I knew I had found this week's books: for Shabby Tiger--"an extravaganza of art, love and Manchester" and for Rachel Rosing--"a portrait of an utterly unscrupulous and selfish woman". Apparently Rachel Rosing made an appearance in the first novel, which was also made into a film in 1973. Since it wasn't all that long ago I wonder if any of you have seen the film or read the books?
It seems the New York Times gave Shabby Tiger a mixed, though not entirely bad, review. "A highly improbable but very entertaining story of peculiar people" is how it begins. I think the reviewer took issue with the premise--Artist Nick Staunce meets Anna Fitzgerald in a restaurant; she's just lost her job as a serving maid after nicking some of her mistress's belongings. The two end up in Manchester in what the reviewer calls a "cock-eyed extravaganza". I'm not sure whether I think it sounds completely fun or completely outrageous. I sort of like madcap, though 1930s madcap does make me wonder.
As for Rachel Rosing, she fares much better with the reviewers. The novel came out just a year later and the NYT called it a "notable and colorful novel".
"It is not often that one comes across a novel which seems so intensely alive as does this story of a Manchester Jewess, 'Rachel Rosing' . Not only on account of the vividness of Rachel herself, though she dominates the book; each character walks into the reader's awareness as a human being, and if each is sometimes perplexing and inconsistent, so are persons we meet in real life."
If you're curious you can watch the first season of Shabby Tiger here. It's sort of fun to get visuals before deciding whether to read or not.