High Time

Suds #2

by Mary Lasswell

1944 edition, no jacket, 3 small spots on front cover

Genres: Fiction, Humor

Textbook Binding

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

American author of humorous novels about life in Southern California, Texas, Mexico, and Newark, New Jersey under the name Mary Lasswell. She was born in Scotland to American parents and grew up in Brownsville, Texas.

Her first book, Suds in Your Eye (1942), published by Houghton Mifflin, was described as "a crazy, funny story" about three impoverished but high-spirited and beer-loving elderly women. It was adapted into a Broadway Play by Jack Kirkland in 1944.

Laswell followed with five other books about the same three women, Mrs. Feeley, Mrs. Rasmussen, and Miss Tinkham, plus their handyman, only known as "Old-Timer". These included High Time (1944), One on the House (1949), Wait for the Wagon (1951), Tooner Schooner (1953), and Let's Go for Broke (1962), all with illustrations by famed New Yorker artist George Price. Their home base for most of the series was called "Noah's Ark", and was a junkyard in San Diego, but the third and fourth books were set during travels. These books consistently featured certain themes: the main characters faced financial disaster, were usually forced to take innovative measures to ensure a homeplace, rescued other people with problems, and acted as matchmakers.

Lasswell was also an editorial writer for the Houston Chronicle in the 1960's.

She was married to Dr. Dudley Winn Smith, a surgeon.

She died at the Solvang Lutheran Home in Solvang, California of Alzheimer's disease.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someday the world will rediscover Mary Lasswell, an under-appreciated comic writer of the 1940's. Until it does, I will treasure my cache of her slim volumes, especially those featuring three middle-aged eccentric ladies with a talent for unlikely adventures and a fondness for cold beer. There's no one quite like Lasswell, though certainly other writers of the era, such as Mary Roberts Rinehart and Thorne Smith, shared a similar sensibility. But Lasswell's spirit is uniquely democratic and her characters are decidedly working class and entirely lovable.

[Sue Clancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the sense of humor - for example I enjoyed the phrase "let me put on my trotting harness" as the author used it to represent a "wearing a bra"!

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 bk 341. It's WWII and our three ladies feel like they aren't doing their part to help win the war. The solution - apply for a job at the local aircraft plant. The personal director manages to not laugh at the geriatric trio - but then ruins it all by asking for their birth certificates. For younger folks, birth certificates were not a thing in most states until very late in the 1800's. Turned away from the job, they encounter a woman weeping on the curb by their car. Turns out, she is going to have to quit her job because of lack of childcare. A light bulb moment ensues and within 24 hours the trio is babysitting Winston and Franklin, 2 adorable and well behaved babies. The gang has other issues at hand, helping a young woman realize her self-worth, adding two older children to the mix while the mother is taking the cure, and planning a party. This is my second favorite of the series.

[Katharine Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious. Old women, WWII era, who spend much of their time drinking beer, are turned down by a warplant. They decide to find other ways to help the war effort. The fun of High Time that it's not a sanctimonious book as so many war-era books are. These ladies want to help the war effort, and if they manage to overcome the national beer shortage along the way, so much the better. Loved High Time

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading at least the first part of this book back in the seventies, but I don't think I finished it and I think I know why. It's just not as lighthearted and fun as Suds in Your Eye. Of course it is very much a "war effort", very much an add-on to the rounded story of the Three Graces, with their desire to serve the boys in uniform in any way they can. This includes handing out unsolicited advice to any young adult within reach, be it a B-girl, a goodtime girl, soldier, sailor or cocktail waiter. This advice is couched in much coarser language than in the first book, as if profanity somehow lent credence to their pronouncements. (It doesn't.) Mrs Feeley and Rasmussen talk a lot more ignorantly than they did before, while Miss Tinkham spouts mangled quotations and proverbs at every turn. Suddenly she's the "intellectual" of the group, har har. The situations dealt with are often seamier too--from neglected children and ladies of the evening to a full-blown schizoid breakdown on the part of a woman they've just met. Mrs Feeley's new business venture of the parking lot hardly gets a passing mention.

Another thing that bothered me: in the first book, they mostly enjoyed their beer at the end of the day, as a celebration of a job well done or a relaxer after a tough day. This time around, they booze it up from breakfast to bedtime. In spite of their constant complaints that "beer is so hard to get what with rationing and all" they don't seem to have trouble guzzling nonstop. Sadly, it's not so much about enjoying a couple of cold ones as "tying one on."Added to the huge servings of multi-course meals Rasmussen constantly produces, IRL they would be fat as pigs.

The need to donate blood is an important plot-thread but as a long time donor myself, I was surprised that the nurses tell them to skip breakfast the day of their first donation! Maybe we've learned better since 1942; I remember one day at the donor clinic when a young man passed out after giving his pint. The nurse scooped him up and put him on the gurney (quite a neat trick, as she was petite and he was rather massive), and when he came round she scolded him for not telling her he'd had nothing to eat that morning!

[Shaene Ragan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Arkies continue their antics as they try to help the war effort with Mrs. Rasmussen's cooking, a little war-time babysitting and the destruction of Mrs. Feeley's beloved beer can wall. Anyone who loved Suds in your Eye as the three old ladies came together and began their early wartime antics will love High Time. The three ladies of Noah's Ark junkyard continue what they started in the first book and show no signs of losing their way on the path straight to the reader's laughter.

[Jean Pilch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Resurrection of an Oldie But Goody series.

I read this in the 60's and fell in love with Mary Lasswell's writing and zany characters. I recently started the series again with Suds in Your Eye, which was perfect in every way. Onwards to book 3 in the series.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 3/4 stars

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

More hijinks from our intrepid trio and the friends they make along the way, always stopping for a beer! This is such a fun series!

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ladies from Suds in Your Eye are back and the Navy will never be the same.

[MB (What she read) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another comfort re-read. I love these books, they are such a good-hearted kick--a slice of life from the WW2-era! The ladies always make me laugh with their ingenuity and the romps they get into.