Pearly White

Headline from nypost.com: “Brazilian fisherman survives 11 days in shark-infested waters inside a freezer.” According to the accompanying article by Selim Algar, he climbed in when his boat went down. Photo from Google Images:

The name Dornford Yates conjures the upper class. It was the pseudonym of author Cecil William Mercer (1885–1960), whose work was popular between the first and second world wars. He was a cousin of Saki, whom he idolized. In college he performed in theater. He earned a law degree from Oxford. Although he wasn’t a full-fledged attorney, he worked as an assistant and gained insight into the ways of the criminal world. He wrote short stories in his spare time, more than 120 published in magazines. He served mostly in Egypt during The Great War. He married an American dancer and the couple moved to France in 1922. They divorced in 1929. Mercer did not return to the bar. He remarried in 1934, this time to a Londoner. They fled France when the Nazis took control. Mercer was recommissioned, serving as a Major during WWII. Post-war, the couple moved to Rhodesia, where they remained until his death. His most famous works fall into two main categories: adventure and comedy. I decide to give Berry & Co. a shot, and am glad I did. Set in 1919, it’s about an upper-class family living on an estate outside London and the misadventures they experience. The title character is the head of the household, married to the sister of the narrator. Two cousins live with them. They are younger than 30. I sense the three men served in WWI, but there is little mention of it, and none seem the worse for the wear. The book is comprised of episodes that were published as short stories but fit together seamlessly. They are slices of life. Although the members are upper class, they are not so snooty as to avoid the family dog licking their faces. What distinguishes the work is the writing, a beautiful literary style that occasionally lost me. Part of that is due to the references of the day and, perhaps, the changes in the use of language, but I must confess that the wit often sailed past me. Berry is a master of acid tongue commentary, capable of paraphrasing Shakespeare on the fly. I estimate that I didn’t understand 25% of the narrative. Still, I really enjoyed it, particularly an early piece on a lost Rolls Royce. Here’s a cover different from my paperback copy, photo from GI:

And here is the author, photo from GI:

Changing world, headline from newsmax.com: “India Surpasses UK as 5th Largest Economy.” Environmental zealots must be appalled, as India uses massive amounts of coal.

Think Germans regret not buying the liquid natural gas Trump offered to sell them?

Another quiet day at the floating book shop. I shouldn’t complain, as the forecast was for rain and there was mostly blue sky. My thanks to The Quiet Man, who bought a DVD collection of six Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts and a paperback of Best Ghost Stories Ever; and to the young woman who purchased a massive textbook on Cabinet Making. The latter is the type of sale I enjoy most other than selling one of my own books.

My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts

Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza