| The Green Helmet | |
| Author: | Jon Cleary |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Publisher: | Collins |
| Release Date: | 1957 |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 266 pp. |
| Preceded By: | Justin Bayard |
| Followed By: | Back of Sunset |
The Green Helmet is a 1957 novel by the Australian author Jon Cleary.[1] It was the author's eighth novel.
Brothers Ham and Taz Rafferty are professional race car drivers whose father was killed during the Mille Miglia, a 1000-mile endurance race through Italy. The boys' mother extracts a promise from Taz that he will allow Ham to drive while he bides his time. But tension builds between the two when Ham refuses to retire after a near-disaster. An American tire manufacturer contracts Ham to race on his tires and a romance ensues between Ham and the American's daughter.
Cleary had written a book about Australian politics, The Mayor's Nest, but his English publisher was worried it would not appeal to an international audience, and suggested a book on motor racing.
Cleary and his wife had lived in Italy for a year and became familiar with the motor races there such as the Mille Miglia. He had not written in six months, so moved to Valencia, a small town in Spain where he rented a villa. He wrote the novel in twenty days at a chapter a day.[2] [3]
After its initial publication in UK by Collins in 1957, it was reprinted as follows:
The book became a best seller on its publication in 1957. Cleary says Reader's Digest paid an advance of 20,000 pounds for their editions.[6]
Kirkus Reviews was not impressed with the work: "Superb suspense in the racing aspects; the romance is contrived and two-dimensional."[7]
A reviewer in The Bulletin found a lot more to like about the author's "swift and clear presentations of scenes in high-class English pubs, New York pent-house apartments, American factories, English country places! Writers with more to say, or less, might well admire the hard-gained discipline of his writing."[8]
The novel was adapted as a film of the same name in 1961, directed by Michael Forlong with a screenplay by Jon Cleary.[9]