MISS JENNIFER LASH'S NOVEL
A first novel by Jennifer Lash, eldest daughter of Brigadier and Mrs. H. A. Lash of Bridge End, Churt, was published last week.
Miss Lash who is 23, was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Turnbridge, Wells, and was at the Farnham School of Art for a time. She later worked at the War Office and was at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but later became a school matron and taught at a boys' preparatory school. After these experiences she has now settled down to writing and at present is living with friends in Suffolk.
The author has produced an intriguing book. Written in the first person, the story concerns an eight-years-old girl whose house with its large gardens had been a wonderful refuge for an imaginative child and then suddenly her world comes to an end. Her mother leaves a husband who is too fond of drink and for the child that means leaving the country and being taken with her elder sister to London, which with the closeness of its streets and the view of rooftops from the window, is horrid.
She does not find growing up in the new environment easy and that instability of it, coupled with what had already happened, affects her deeply. After various buffetings she finds a refuge in marriage and has a child but it only brings a greater tragedy.
Not a happy book but a compelling one, with the author showing marked ability
to express herself.