An Open Letter from H. M. Tomlinson

I have never before heard of Norah Hoult, but there is no doubt, if she continues to write, that she is likely to be freely named whenever the best fiction is discussed. There is nothing precious or superior about her writing. It is simple and direct; all its subtlety is in its observation, not the comment upon it. Her short stories are far away the best I have read this year – in fact, no comparison is possible, for I know of nothing written of late years with which to compare them. They are the unique manifestations which genius always gives us. Norah Hoult's gift for narrative is the right magic for storytelling. She begins casually, and goes on, apparently at random, and one follows her because one must. It looks so easy that it would deceive the innocent into supposing that anyone could do it; that means, I suppose, that both the fastidious and the omnivorous will read her – she may even be popular. What the uncritical would fail to observe, because they would be too interested in her story to bother about it, is the fact that she creates men and women, and that we are at once deeply concerned in their adventures; for we happen to recognize their common humanity. Norah Hoult's compulsion of a reader, in fact, comes of the virtue without which no writer can be great – pity. She would never have observed her frail sisters so faithfully without that quality; and she would never have aroused our interest in them so deeply if our instinct for fellowship had not instantly responded. She is not cynical, even over sinners. She belongs to a better and greater tradition. Here is not a new note in English fiction, but it is so rare today that, after the astonishing case of Thornton Wilder, one would venture to predict that the public will turn to it in relief, for its servitude to the harsh brutality of so much of the successful authorship in these years of disillusionment has been too long.