Here's Luck

by Lennie Lower

Residing in a run-down Sydney suburb during the Depression, Jack Gudgeon, age 48, is a male chauvinist, money-owing cynic, layabout, and barroom philosopher. His wife, Agatha, having had more than she can take, has finally walked out on him. With Jack and his equally unreliable adolescent son, Stanley, left to fend for themselves, pandemonium ensues. Full of sardonic wit and mad capers, father and son blaze a trail of drunken chaos through the city's pubs, clubs, race courses, and their own increasingly battered home. Along the way, they fall in with a weird and wondrous assortment of lowlife characters who turn up to enliven the kind of party that Mr. Gudgeon invariably intends to be a "quiet, respectable turnout," but which, somehow, never is.

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Australia, 20th Century

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Leonard (Lennie) Waldemar Lower (24 September 1903 - 19 July 1947) was an Australian humourist who is still considered by many to be the comic genius of Australian journalism.

Lower was born in Dubbo, New South Wales. His father was a pharmacist and his mother was Florence McInerney. Educated in Sydney, Lower joined the army for a brief time before turning to journalism, where his talents as a humorist soon gained him a legion of dedicated fans and a place in Australian history. He wrote up to eight columns each week for a variety of newspapers in Sydney during the Depression and World War II.

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the funniest books I ever read. You'd never know it was written so many decades in the past. It reads modern. I read it years ago. The edition marked here is probably not the edition I read, but it is free online somewhere. Apparently it is the only book he wrote - too bad.

[Sammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Blow in your ear, and wake yourself up", exclaimed Daisy contemptuously, "I wouldn't send in the coupon if you were a free sample."

Freaking hilarious. Here's Luck was a complete sensation when it was published in Australia in 1930, and propelled Lennie Lower to a decade of ceaseless comedy writing in books and newspaper columns.

This is a darn funny series of sketches, really, hung around the loose plot of a father and son pair who are generally no good, gambling, drinking, and verbally abusing the women around them. Lower's descriptions are David Sedaris-level amusing.

I'm always worried, reading these kind of books, at how the women will be portrayed. Not that we can do much about the general sidelining of wives and mothers in this era (and the invisibility of all other women aside from the coquette) but sometimes it becomes too much. Thankfully, as the quote above shows, the women here are able to return fire just as strongly. Lower is aware of the lunacy and mental poverty of his men even as he deifies them.

[Michael Percy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lenny Lower is an Australian version of a cross between Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac, but I found myself expecting a "boom-tish" at the end of the many of the dead-pan jokes. Written in the first person, this Depression-era novel is certainly literature, and despite creating an expectancy of slap-stick that never comes, I feel that if Fitzgerald and Kerouac collaborated on an episode of Dad and Dave, Here's Luck would be the result! Not sure why Lower's work is not used more often in Australian schools, and I was glad to find this gem after reading Max Cullens' autobiography, Tell 'Em Nothing, Take 'Em Nowhere".

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aussie humour at it's best. Dry slapstick and alcohol fuelled malarkey.
Why hasn't this been made into a movie?

[Marius Venz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't think of a funnier book than this one. Poor old Jack Gudgeon doesn't quite cope with life, but somehow manages to get by, sometimes helped, but more often hindered, by his 19-year-old son Stanley, who is just as bad as (if not worse than) he is. A broken marriage, "gimme" girls and various underworld characters - not to mention Jack's favourite refuge, Flannery's Pub - all help the father and son descend into ever more outrageous situations, and the humour escalates to0 as they do so. Despite all that happens, there is a happy ending, though Jack continues to blame Stanley for everything and never sees any fault in himself. A book to keep handy and re-read every time one needs a good laugh!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cyril Pearl described this as “Australia’s funniest book” and he’s not wrong as this 1930 story set in Sydney has plenty of great one-liners and is strikingly modern in tone. Jack Gudgeon is unhappily married with a bit of an aimless fool for a son and their adventures, many fuelled by excess consumption of alcohol, with a variety of entertaining characters make for a knowing and very Australian examination of the lives of those on the fringes of the law at the onset of the Depression. Hilarious at times

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this nostalgic trip with Jack Gudgeon and his son, as they deal with wine, women, and Woggo Slatter in 1920s Sydney. Were it not for the setting (which had some of the flavour of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs), I could almost believe this book to be written by P.J. O'Rourke on one of his better days.
I shall visit the Gudgeons again.

[Brian SIdlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blend of wry cynicism, slapstick and alcohol, it remains fresh and laugh-out-loud funny. Filled with witty one-liners and ridiculous situations.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lower's place in the pantheon of Australian writers seems to have been lost over the decades and this is a shame, as he is definitely one of our foremost authors, both in terms of his (admittedly historical) Australian voice and his ability to tell a bloody funny yarn. 'Here's Luck', his sole novel, is the most accessible work one can read today, though a trawl through second hand bookselling web sites and Trove will provide other materials from his corpus of newspaper writing. A picaresque and rambling shaggy dog tale following the mishaps of the Jack Gudgeon and his son Stanley after the womenfolk of their 1930s Sydney home depart in a huff, 'Here's Luck' is definitely of its time. Yet it still stands up thanks to the vivacity and intellect of his prose, as well as the furious energy of his writing. Plus, as stated early, this is a book that is quintessentially Australian, though it must be said in today's more diverse literary environment, one that is very white and very male.

One aspect of Lower's prose that deserves praise is how effectively he captures the tragicomedy of the middle aged man, trying to work out how he got to where he is, why he has found himself bound to the trappings of 'accepted' life, and where it will take him in the future. Jack Gudgeon is a misogynist not through meanness, but because he feels that he needs to reassert himself after losing a sense of who he is. Lower writes Gudgeon as a character who needs to go through the travails of bachelor life, dealing with the bawdy, drunken, riotous problems a life without his wife (and love) so as to understand that he is secure in his identity.

Lower writes at his best in 'Here's Luck' when he either produces set pieces of farce or when he provides some quieter moments of character reflection. The chapter where Jack goes to his mother-in-laws home to meet with his estranged wife Agatha, and ends up in a chaotic argument with the older woman whilst her parrot interjects is pure comedy gold. As the bird echoes the petty whinges and complaints of its owner, Jack and his mother-in-law swap insults that are hilarious. Then there is the closing bacchanalian party, where Lower creates a riotous affair including an epic oration in favour of booze, a reconciliation between Jack and Agatha, and drunken revelry on a grand scale.

As for the more reflective sections of the book, Lower's protagonist often falls into philosophical pauses, contemplating his life and the wider world. This reinforces the earlier point made regarding Jack Gudgeon's crisis of identity. However Lower adds depth to Gudgeon by adding a popular scholar's intellect to Jack. He quotes Shakespeare and Latin and is obviously smarter than just any larrikin. Gudgeon pere is of another degree of culture and education than Gudgeon fils or in fact everyone else in the novel. Perhaps only Daisy, his brief paramour during his separation from Agatha has as much wisdownm and self-understanding, though hers is a more worldy and pragmatic one.

So why should anyone read 'Here's Luck'. There is the laughter-inducing comedic writing, that's for sure. Then there is the depiction of the Australian voice and life as it was about 90s years ago. Finally, to read his only novel again gives Lower's fiction the audience it deserves. It's a bloody good read.

[Karen Stiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still one of the funniest books ever written. So Australian and all school children should have to read

[Greg Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian comic classic; gives good insight into Sydney 1930s; still funny and engaging

[Perry Middlemiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack Gudgeon is living with his son Stanley, wife Agatha and sister-in-law Gertrude in Sydney in the 1920s. Gertrude has been continually telling Agatha to leave her husband as she believes him to be a no-hoper and a drunk. Jack wakes one morning to find the two women have moved out and the rest of the novel follows Jack as he, his son and later his brother-in-law George, get involved in a series of drunken escapades that ends with a spectacular party at their house, which catches fire and burns to the ground. Lower’s novel was considered at one time to be Australia’s funniest ever novel and, while it can be appreciated for its satire and quality of writing, it has tended to lose its comic bite over the years. We’ve seen a few too many such tales for it to have quite the impact it had back in its day. One to be read for its historical significance. R: 3.4/5.0

[Kirkwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the great comic Australian novels - Lennie Lower was (in my opinion) a genius with words.

Published in 1930 and very much reflecting its time, I'm not sure that readers younger than, say, 50-55, would appreciate the setting and narrative. In fact, I came to this as a 20-something in 1980 via an audio serialisation on ABC Radio (in Australia) which brought the characters to life and made me laugh out loud. I sought out the book afterwards and had the advantage of having the characters' voices in my mind. Perhaps it helped that older members of my family were not unlike some of them.

Must add it to my 're-reading list'. Nice to have something to look forward to.

There are a few collections of his shorter pieces (newspaper columns in the main, from memory) that are also well worth checking out.