Nothing But The Best

In the United States as

Second Time Round

Published:
London, Hutchinson
Boston, Houghton Mifflin
London, Mayflower, Reprint 1968

Comments:
"Mr. Hanley is a natural storyteller and the proud possessor of a ribald sense of humor."
The New York Times

"We liked it very much and nailed to our flagpole is the motto: Intelligent Entertainment is a Book Beyond Price."
Kirkus Reviews

"The author ... is to be thanked for first-rate entertainment."
Louisville Courier Journal

" ... a talent for striking sparks out of the spongiest nincompoops.  Add to this the casual, canny deftness of a style completely responsive to its subject and you have a combination hard to beat."
Book Week

"It must be an epidemic", he said to the bedroom wall.  "I do nothing but fling women out of this house."
Fletcher speaking -- Tom Fletcher, salesman extraordinary, zest nonconformist, seemingly entreched widower, and hitherto happy possessor of a spacious suburban house and a sleek Jaguar.  But since the death of his gay and irrepressible wife, Tom's existence has gradually become unmanageable.  His young son has turned sulky; his married daughter bossy; and his housekeeper more relentless than ever in her efforts to surprise him with his morning tea precisely as he slips down his pajama trousers.  To compound these domestic difficulties a very attractive and highly available old flame just turns up; and to cap them Tom's company is absorbed by a huge firm and the super salesman who has always played it by ear must choose between clearing out of becoming a model organization man.
It is one of those times when life closes in on a man.  And although Tom at first counterattacks with his usual fire and ingenuity, he soon wonders whether the cards aren't stacked against him too heavily.  Feeling trapped, over the hill, and not a little alone, he begins to rely on booze, books and past memories.  Then an uproarious vacation in Switzerland brings him a fresh lease on life, for it is here that he meets the two people who will provide him with the desire and the ammunition to even the odds.
Second Time Round is altogether the most spirited export to come from Scotland since Haig & Haig -- a marvelously warm, human story filled with crackling dialogue and moments of spanking high comedy.  It will be particularly enjoyed by anyone who has ever felt the temptation to stop fighting.

Author's bio, by himself:

"In the first twelve months of his retirement, he wrote two plays, a pseudonymous thriller, a weekly newspaper column, a television play and two documentary films, one of which he also directed.  He is happily married, has two children and a boxer bitch, and sill likes living in his native Glasgow, smokes and drinks, and hopes to find a method of refusing to give lectures or after-dinner speeches.  He is violently attached to non-violent political and moral opinions.  He talks too much.  For years he has been nagged by a plan for a new kind of light opera, but despairs of starting it before his forty-first birthday, which was in 1963.

Copyright 2025 The Estate of Clifford Hanley