Laughter at the Door

‘Not for the first time in my life I was back to Square One, but this time I was bashing it.’

Laughter at the Door is a chronicle of life’s ups and downs. With comedy never far away from the author, the narrator is sustained throughout by his faith in a better future. The account opens with the outbreak of the Second World War, coinciding with the publication of Trease’s first adult novel. Hitler, of course, puts paid any potential success.

Recounting his experiences in a Cumbrian prepatory school, as an infantry private and Army Educational Corps instructor, and at home and among the Indian hills, Geoffrey Trease never forgets his real vocation. Ideas and impressions fill his notebook, revealing his working methods and tracing the genesis of a particular story or fictional character.

With the final chapters dealing with the immediate post-war years, this is an intriguing and entertaing account of how a writer can pull himself back from Square One to the established literary position Geoffrey Trease occupies today.

Praise for Geoffrey Trease

‘Deserves success: and a sequel. Mr Trease writes with such easy modesty of his years of struggle that he could overcome the difficulty of coping with the years of success’ – Times Literary Supplement

‘Taste and confidence are restored by Geoffrey Trease in an admirably balanced account of his youth’ – New Statesman