THE WIND SHIFTS

by Alan Sharp ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 1968

Alan Sharp's second novel is a continuation, not so much of a story, as of the evolution of characters (""character is fate,"" he quotes) which he began in A Green Tree in Gedde. John Moseby, the Daedalus-like student (the author's Joycean influences are pronounced) has now left Glasgow University and his wife and child to come to London's lower depths--in search of himself. His chosen surroundings feed his guilts--the seedy restaurant where he washes dishes, the cemetery which consoles him, the rooming house in which he is prey to the emotional forays of a fellow lodger. He eventually comes across the Cuffees--Peter and Ruth, brother and sister, once incestuously united, who are equally engaged in similar self-seeking. Ruth is living with placid Harry Gibbon but leaves him for Moseby who offers her nothing but intensity. For Peter, ""life was about finding the place that could reveal you to yourself."" His search takes him to Germany and to an episode of fairy tale proportions in which he attempts to rescue a young woman from a castle where she is held the emotional captive of a philosophical, crypto-Nazi who keeps hawks and falcons and who is the indirect cause of Cuffee's death. Mr. Sharp's novel is easy to read in the sense that we've met his trio and their derivative ideas many times before. His minor characters are much more arresting and far less alienating, perhaps because he doesn't take them so seriously.

Pub Date: March 25, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Walker

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION