Word: gair
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...HOUSE OF GAIR (251 pp.)−Eric Linklafer−Harcourf, Brace...
...moor−English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish−is a scarred old playing field of English letters. It shows up again in Eric Linklater's entertaining new novel, The House of Gair, but only as a chilly device to drive the characters indoors. Indoors means, of course, the one and only house on the moor, with its hint of doomsday mysteries. But the real specialty of The House of Gair is light comedy, not heavy breathing...
Stranded far from town, Stephen Coryat, a writer, accepts a gracious offer to spend the night at the House of Gair, a thrifty Scottish version of Manderley, of Rebecca fame. His host turns out to be an Edwardian dandy of 77 named Hazeldon Crome, who had himself written a novel in the '90s called A Quiet Day in Old Cockaigne. Crome charms Stephen completely with his milk & whisky pick-me-ups, his billiard game, and his nostalgic reveries on the days of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley...
Stephen leaves Gair, but he cannot shake off a gnawing question. Why, he asks Crome on a second visit, did he stop writing after the critical success of Cockaigne? Nothing of the sort, confides Crome; he merely stopped publishing...
Until he could get going again, such competitors as Robert Gair Co., Seaboard Container and Fiberboard Products offered to help Connelly keep his business by filling his orders. Soon his trucks, which had not been damaged, were picking up boxes made by competitors and stamped with his name, and delivering them to his customers. Connelly found the empty 25-acre plant of a closed down iron foundry just outside the city limits, and bought it for $500,000. Thirteen labor unions got their members to work round the clock to rush it into shape. But he still needed machinery. Machinery...