SOMETHING WONDERFUL TO HAPPEN

    Darwin Teilhet (1904-1964) is one of those under-the-radar novelists who for decades turned out book after book. Teilhet’s career extended from 1931 to his death in 1964. During that period he published some two dozen novels under his own name and two pseudonyms. He wrote several more books with his wife, Hildegard Tolman Teilhet. He’s best known for his mystery stories, especially those featuring Baron von Kaz. But Teilhet also published at least ten non-genre novels, of which Something Wonderful to Happen is the only one I’m sure is set primarily in California.

    Something Wonderful to Happen by Darwin L. Teilhet. Appleton- Century-Crofts (1947), 275 pp.
    Barney Higgs, publisher of the local newspaper in a small town south of San Jose, seeks to provide security for his family. He invests in a shady real estate scheme concocted by well-connected developer Arthur Slinker. Barney’s wife, Sally, is outraged but might be mollified if the couple were officially married. As communist students in the 1930s, they had casually ignored convention. Now with four children they are more worried about their reputations. The kids have their problems as well, especially thirteen-year-old Saraphine, who needs Barney’s help to complete a poster for school. Resolving these issues turns out to be more complicated than Barney expects.
    This is a mildly amusing look at family life in the period just after World War II. The story is told from Barney’s point of view. With the lightest touch possible, the author wants to scrutinize Barney’s belief that the welfare of his family can be divorced from the good of society as a whole. Barney is no ideologue here -- just a well-meaning bumbler with bad judgment. If he drank less and had nothing unusual in his background, he might have been the prototype for a 1950s sitcom. The book probably dwells too much on Saraphine’s poster. The comic moments are perhaps not funny enough. And the crucial drunk episode with Slinker’s wife drifts into the incredible. Even so, the novel is sufficiently ingratiating to attract modern readers.