'Melbourne author Oriel Gray has used the skills she developed as a playwright and radio and television writer to good effect in her first novel, The Animal Shop (Penguin, 235pp., S)2.99). It is a heart-warming story full of incident and lively characters and a good deal of humour. The eponymous animal shop is actually an opportunity shop established to raise money to help abandoned animals. Most of those concerned are West Heidelberg battlers, some helping in the shop, others regular customers looking for bargains. The main characters, Pat and Louise. come from different backgrounds. but they have in common broken manages and compassion for others. Among their concerns are Mrs Collins, who is regularly bashed up by her psychotic son; Man-n. mother of three by different fathers and about to have a fourth; Cherry. a deserted wife whose handsome blue-eyed son manages to pull the wool over most people's eyes, and Dorothy Halstrom, faced with the agonising prospect of having to sell her once stately home. In many ways this is an old-fashioned book, with Just enough over-dramatisation of life to maintain interest without ever degenerating into a soapie. ' (Stan Barkley review : The Canberra Times 17 June 1990, 18)
