A MADRAS-TYPE JACKET
By
Evelyn Hawes wrote The Happy Land (1965) and this is more happy talk in the candidly uncomplicated first person of Margo Brown during her freshman year at a small college in the Northwest. She's as friendly as a puppy and she has an older brother Steven guiding and guarding her--an interested pair of parents backstopping her. This takes her through her acceptance into Alpha, through her courses, through the experiences of her friends (Step involved with a married man--Margo puts a stop to it) and through the faintest indication that she has fallen in love, with the boy in a madras-type jacket. He's older, he plays in a combo, writes music, and will become an engineer, and actually has no time for anything except a half a prom and one kiss by the end of the book... In this case youth is not speaking to youth (even the colloquialisms seem superimposed) but almost to an older generation, Miss Hawes', whose values Margo represents and reaffirms. They'll find her wholly wholesome.