THE HILL

by David Greenhood ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 1943

Another candidate for the Tortilla Flat market in a genre novel of the High Sierras. Through the slight thread of the narrator, a young writer and advertising man running away from the fog and turmoil of San Francisco, and accidentally finding himself stalled when his Ford breaks down, the reader follows the unrolling pattern of the characters and incidents in a remote community, beyond the fringe of civilization. It is a ghost mining town, still very much alive within itself. In successive episodes the people take shape and reality:- there is the bulwark of the community, who has the public house where the menfolk -- and sometimes the women too --gather; there is the storekeeper, the widowed postmistress, with whom all the men flirt; there is a young couple, he a hopeless drunk, and she still a charmer, though tempted by the bottle herself; there is the devoted pair who bought a mine because they liked the house that stood over it. The narrator finds himself one with the flow of life, uneventful to outward seeming, but full of incident. And not until his way of escape is almost cut off does he make his way back to the city. Socially, the people are a cut above the paisanos, perhaps. But there is still that flavor of a bit of American folk lore in the making, and the line drawings by Charles B. Wilson contribute appreciably to the text.

Pub Date: March 26, 1943

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Duell, Sloan & Pearce

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1943

Categories: FICTION