SWEENEY'S ISLAND

Another semi-gloss adventure is again predicated on the dire situation (The Long Winter- 1962, p. 258 — after the bomb) after Sweeney, a London magnate, gives a command invitation to some seven or eight people to accompany him South from Honolulu, on a cruise. They are all in some way, maritally, non-maritally, or occupationally, at loose ends: loosest of all is Tony Marriott, a womanizer, in spite of his attractive wife, Toni (sic); then there's Susan Malone, at the end of an affair; Lydia Petrie, contemptuous of men; etc., etc. Off the normal shipping routes, the boat burns and sinks and all are marooned on Sweeney's Island where he withdraws from any active leadership. At first they establish certain communal patterns, but the trouble which begins among the former crew members- native Hawaiians, extends to all kinds of threatening situations, violence and the suspicion that madman Sweeney has used them all as an experiment with extreme consequences... The theme, upgraded age-wise, is very reminiscent— life on a desert island is not civilized at-oll, and it is handled with fair success in terms of surface readability.