If for nothing else, Mr. JACK LONDON'S latest story would deserve a
welcome for its topicality. In these days of strikes and industrial
conflict every one might be glad to know what a writer of his
individuality has to say about unions and blacklegs and picketing.
True, this is hardly the kind of thing that one has learnt to
associate with his name; and for that reason perhaps I best liked _The
Valley of the Moon_ (MILLS AND BOON) after its hero and heroine had
shaken the unsavoury dust of the town from their feet and set them
towards the open country. But much had to happen first. The hero was
big _Billy Roberts_, a teamster with the heart of a child and the
strength of a prize-fighter--which was in fact his alternative
profession. He married _Saxon Brown_ ("a scream of a name" her friend
called it when introducing them to each other), and for a time their
life together was as nearly idyllic as newly-wedded housekeeping in a
mean street could permit it to be. Then came the lean years: strikes
and strike-breaking, sabotage and rioting, prison for _Billy_, and
all but starvation for _Saxon_. Perhaps you know already that peculiar
gift of Mr. JACK LONDON'S that makes you not only see physical
hardship but suffer it? I believe that after these chapters the reader
of them will never again be able to regard a newspaper report of
street-fighting with the same detachment as before, so vivid are
they, so haunting. In the end, however, as I say, we find a happier
atmosphere. The adventures of _Billy_ and _Saxon_, tramping it in
search of a home, soon make their urban terrors seem to them and the
reader a kind of nightmare. Here Mr. LONDON is at his delightful
best, and his word-pictures of country scenes are as fresh and fine
as anything he has yet done. _The Valley of the Moon_, in short,
is really two stories--one grim, one pleasant, and both brilliantly
successful.