(I could've used the "schedule" feature to make it look as if I'd got this one in on Sunday and youall just missed it...but that's not the case. I fell behind. I blame trying to find something to retweet from everyone who likes/retweets my tweets. Twitter is faster than the blogfeed, but...I'm a slow writer.)
WOW. Is this book ever rare. Nobody seems to have a picture of it, but Amazon does have a picture of another book by the same author, so here's Pegram's other book that's still available:
Title: When Tomorrow Comes
Author: Marjorie A. Pegram
Date: 1963
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: none
Length: 152 pages
Quote: “I did have a pretty strong desire to work in the States, because it’s my native land for one reason. I came mighty close to staying in Algeria when Mother and Dad died...The other missionaries on our station really persuaded me to return and finish school.”
This is a Sunday School Book for Young Adult Readers. Capital letters seem appropriate to the story’s level of self-consciousness. Jim the ministerial student is training to be the pastor of a mission church, but his parents’ sudden death from “pneumonic plague” has provided a strong motivation not to go back to Algeria, and he meets a young woman who’s positively eager to offer a marriage that will help keep him “in the States.” He has already met, and liked, a young woman who dreams of being a missionary. Apart from the career choices each girl wants to help Jim make, he likes Laurie better than Patty. Oh, but he likes a country where antibiotics are easy to get better than one where they’re not, too! Even though the missionary station in Algeria really feels like his hometown...plus both girls have other boy friends as well as Jim, none of them having exposed themselves to the carnal temptations of Going Steady...
You know where he’s going to end up, and with whom, and if you want all the details about who said what to whom (but no details about kissing beyond “I shouldn’t have kissed like that”), you may find When Tomorrow Comes a good read.
Personally I don’t. I think, if a plot is going to be as bland and predictable as this one, the story ought to offer something else...lots of information about Algeria, maybe, or a subplot with more suspense in it, or Jules-Verne-quality science fiction, or at least it should have been printed in French so the language challenge would’ve kept me awake. It can be hard to make any conflict-between-two-goods story come to life; perhaps it’s hardest of all when the conflict is between two prospective mates and the writer, and the characters, are all determined to keep this a pure and spiritual decision with no sexual feelings involved. A sex-free romance can be a good side plot in an adventure story, and if you liked Little Women (I did) you’ll agree that a romance where all the sex is “between the lines” can work well in a wholesome family story, but a sex-free romance all by its own has a flavor like lukewarm tofu.
In the copy of this book I physically own, eight pages failed to print. You turn the page and see two blank white sheets of paper. Later in the book you realize that at least two lines that were key to the plot must have been among the lines that aren’t printed on those blank pages. And if your standards are mine you’re thinking, “No loss; at least that brings the predictable end along that much sooner.”
But perhaps your tastes aren’t mine. Perhaps you like “novels of manners,” which this one is to the extent that it’s a novel of anything, and you’re collecting vintage Sunday School books. If so, When Tomorrow Comes is for you.
And, if so, you should be a serious collector, because this one has become very rare. Amazon's bottom-most price on their one known copy is almost $15. I checked the other online sources, and nobody had this title at all--which may be why superstar Janette Oke felt free to reuse the title for one of her hugely more successful "Christian romances." If you want the late Marjorie Pegram's When Tomorrow Comes, send $15 per copy, $5 per package, and $1 per online payment to the appropriate address below.
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