Bomb Weary Family Cries Against War (1950)

Book Review from the 21st May, 1950, issue of the Los Angeles Times

My Time, My Life. by George Camden. (Doubleday: $2.75.)

George Camden, we would guess, might never have written a book if there hadn't been a war. The son of a London rag-and-bones man, he worked since he was 14 as a barber's assistant, and later as a tailor. For five years he, his wife and child lived with the bombs in London.

While "My Time, My Life" may not be strictly autobiographical, it surely is drawn from bitter personal experience.

Bill Smith, Pat, his wife, and Curly Goldstein, his friend, were too busy earning a living and keeping off the dole to worry about a war they had no part in making. War came anyhow. Curly enlisted, Bill was in an essential industry and faced the war in London with his family in the midst of a holocaust.

So, we have another war novel by another new author. And we can't treat this one casually. We can't treat any of them casually, no matter how badly they write—and George Camden does not write badly at all.

They all have one thing in common—an anguished sincerity, a great inner need to cry out against war. George Camden writes simply, entertainingly and sincerely. He deserves to be read.

Helen O. Schrader

Blogger's Note:

'George Camden' was the pen-name of Sid Rubin, a very active speaker and writer for the SPGB in the thirties and forties. The Socialist Standard review of his novel can be found at the following link.