The Stray Lamb

The story of a conventional American commuter with a (secretly) unfaithful wife who is turned into a black stallion by a little russet man he meets in the woods.

totally good and goofy.

This was published a few years after Topper, which it vaguely resembles in content and tone, although the two books have no characters in common.

As in Topper, a wealthy, respectable man in early middle age is beset by supernatural events and begins to be naughty and disruptive to society in general. He drinks too much, although so does everyone else (in the USA during the counter-productive era of the National Prohibition Act). He’s unhappily married, but an attractive young woman is unaccountably fascinated by him.

The clear difference is that there are no ghosts in this one. Instead, Mr Lamb meets a mysterious Puckish stranger who literally enchants him, so that he intermittently turns into animals of different kinds. His adventures show more are quite entertaining if you like that kind of thing.

I’d describe it as a good-natured romp, set in days of old, almost a century ago. show less