The Glorious Pool
60 year old Rex Pebble inadvertently discovers that the fountain of youth happens to be in his back yard swimming pool. A magical statue of a nymph by the name of Baggage, an ornamental pool decoration, has playfully endowed the Pebble swimming pool with the power to reverse the aging process. Typical Thorne Smith fun ensues when Pebble, his wife, and his mistress take a dip and take 20 years off their lives. One of the funniest scenes concerns a book dealer wanting to display his old and rare to Pebble's unresponsive mistress.
The Ron Howard movie Cocoon borrowed the theme from The Glorious Pool with many of the same humourous results.
The Glorious Pool, published in 1934 after Thorne Smith's death was completed by his wife, Celia. This is the last novel that Smith had a direct part in writing.
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Thorne Smith
James Thorne Smith Jr. (1892–1934), was an American writer of humorous supernaturnal fantasy fiction.
Best known today for his creation of Topper, Smith's comic fantasy fiction (most of it involving sex, lots of drinking, and supernatural transformations, and aided by racy illustrations) sold millions of copies in the early 1930s. Smith drank as steadily as his characters; his appearance in James Thurber's The Years With Ross involves an unexplained week-long disappearance.
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