SOURCE: A review of Hot Water Music, in Punch, Vol. 286, February 15, 1984, p. 48.

In the following negative review, Mansur underscores the superficiality of the stories in Hot Water Music.

There is a bookshop in San Francisco where some 30 feet of shelf space are designated “For the Writer”. The space is fully occupied, and the floor area in front is usually well populated by Jack London's heirs. So let's push our way through and see what Californian writers are reading.

A potential bestseller could be Outdoor Writing (as it were, “First mount your roller-skates, gripping your pen in your teeth …”); or perhaps How You Can Make $20,000 a Year Writing, No Matter Where You Live (the first chapter entitled “To Hell with Manhattan”); or even, How to Write and Sell Your Personal Experiences. Evidently, lots of people think it beats living them, though they do not, I hope, commit them to...