The Trouble With Lazy Ethel by Ernest K. and 12 similar items

The Trouble With Lazy Ethel by Ernest K. Gann 1958 HC/DJ The Trouble With Lazy Ethel Ernest K. Gann New York: William Sloane Associates, 1958 320 pages The hinges are cracked, the binding is weakening but still in acceptable condition. The pages are tanning, some are corner creased and two pages are stained in the lower margin. The front end paper has been removed and there are names written on the half title page. The jacket flaps are glued down both in the front and back. The jacket is edge worn, toned and rubbed. Acceptable in fair dust-jacket. Hardcover. The heroine, Margaret Trumpey, of Beloit, Wisconsin, is not a breathtaking beauty. Nor is the hero, Adam Smith, in the broad shouldered, crinkly eyed tradition. He is just a guy trying to get along. Exactly like a lot of young men you certainly know. He doesn't want to set the world on fire, even if he were capable. But what he does inadvertently to the inhabitants of Nikki atoll reaches such a climax, it might as well be a global conflagration. Certainly Herbert Zebulon Pike, Bri. Gen., USA (Retired), thought so. Pike was in charge of every living soul on Nikki atoll. Success of Government Project Zeus just might balance out his notable lack-lustre military career. The odds were many against such a fortunate conclusion. Pike's bourbon vaporous wife for one thing...and the weather. In one of the most memorable characters Gann has ever created we see Pike frustrated almost beyond endurance by just the plain recalcitrance of human beings, and equally recalcitrant weather. Since Adam Smith is in charge of the weather he becomes a veritable shooting gallery for Pike's emotions...This story is happening all over the world, wherever expanding American influence has deposited its representatives. The Romans had their troubles with hapless proconsuls. It would be pointless to deny that certain similarities exist today. Few writers can build to a climax like Gann. And many authors might well have chosen a more pompous means to display the fantastic trouble with Lazy Ethel. Gann chose a needle and a smile. Behind his ironic comedy, there lurks all the warmth and vigor which have become his trademark. (#00002207)