Howard Spring (1889–1965)

An absolute blockbuster of a novel, narrated by author William Essex. Recalling his childhood as the unwanted son of a Manchester washerwoman, he remembers too his early – and lifelong – burning ambition to become rich.
While in lodgings he becomes friends with Dermot, a gifted carpenter with strong patriotic feelings for the Irish, suffering under English rule. And as the narrative follows the personal and professional lives of the two men, Essex describes a conversation they have on the show more birth of their respective sons on the same day: Dermot resolves that his son shall achieve what he has not – “I shall never be satisfied with the position of Ireland under the muddy feet of your bloody country. My son shall not be satisfied with it. He shall go to Ireland, he shall learn to be an Irishman as I am not … now you know what I want most passionately in this world for my son.” Essex also wants to realise in his son what he has missed himself: “I’ve been poor in a way that even you have never known … I just want him to have everything. I’ll work my fingers to the bone to give him every damn thing he asks for.”
The two families are always close, but the results of the different input from the fathers into their sons’ upbringing makes for a riveting read, nail-biting to the last. Not, perhaps, great literature, but Howard Spring writes with style and keeps the reader enthralled from the first sentence. I loved his memory – prophetic of things to come - of swimming on a Cornish holiday just before the First World War “The sight of all others most fascinating in those waters: a horde of tiny silver fish, swimming in a long thin procession, ten or a dozen abreast, like a small marine army on the move. Endlessly they went by, never changing their formation, wheeling now to the right, now to the left, but always precise, regimented, moving as by a common will. A small cloud drifted before the sun and the water, still pellucid, turned grey. And the silver fish turned grey. I could still see them: a grey endless army, moving to some unknown encounter across the grey floor of the sea.”
A really good read - I've just bought another of Spring's novels on the strength of it! show less

A dear friend of mine recently passed away. His wife, knowing we shared many interests, told me to come by the house and pick up some books. "My children will throw them away when I’m gone; they don’t read."

While I was browsing his shelves she took a book from one of her own and said, "This author writes as he should! You get lost in his books." It was the way she said it that stayed with me, and later I decided to buy My Son, My Son. Not from her, as she would not sell it. I opened the show more first page the day the book arrived, out of curiosity; I had no intention of starting it then, as my reading list was already long. A few minutes later I was no longer standing, and two weeks on I had finished it.

Since then three more books have found their way into my collection, and I face a delightful dilemma: give in to the temptation to read them straight away, or resist and save them for later. So far, it seems highly likely I will fail the Stanford marshmallow experiment. show less

Hard Facts is about several characters and how their lives become involved with each other. The main character Theodore Chrystal is sent to be a curate to help a vicar in Manchester, England. He was the only character in the book I really didn't care for. He seemed ill- suited to his chosen profession, lacking compassion, judgmental, and selfish. He meets the Dunkersly family, who own a struggling printing company. Mr. Dunkersly has a good heart, hiring a young boy, Alec Dillworth, who is show more growing up in deplorable conditions with his sister Elsie, as a means to get them out of the slum and better their lives. Theodore Chrystal watches the birth of 'Hard Fact' paper the Mr. Dunkersly creates and ends up making the Dunkersly family immensely wealthy. Through the course of this, Theo believes he has fallen in love with Elsie Dillworth, not knowing the circumstances of her past, and once he does learn the facts-- cannot except Elsie. I thought it was a good book and enjoyed reading it, with good character development and about these people with intertwining lives through the passage of time.

Howard Spring was a popular author, with his first book being published in 1932, and his popularity increased until his death in the '60's. Many of his books later were made into movies or t.v. series. In his early career as a journalist for the Guardian, editor C. P. Scott ' apparently regarded Spring's reporting skills highly; he wrote of Spring that: "Nobody does a better 'descriptive' or a better condensation of a difficult address." ' Wikipedia cites " he combined a wide understanding of human character with technical skill as a novelist. His method of composition was painstaking and professional. Each morning he would shut himself in his room and write one thousand words, steadily building up to novels of around 150,000 words. He rarely made major alterations to his writings." I look forward to reading more by him.

I read this book for #Club1944 and twogalsandabook.com show less

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

This novel is a woman's reflection and retelling of her life. It's likeable though very slow. She outlives all the original characters and two world wars in Cornwall, Great Britain. Euphemia Emmett is her doll and the novel's opening line hooks the reader; 'Euphemia Emmett was buried at dawn on May, the twenty-first, 1881.' There are vivid and very believable scenes but many of the characters don't cause the reader to care because their introductions are too brief