Glorified, by Dorothy Wegman (1930)
As a novel, Glorified is nothing special. Molly Robbins narrates her story from childhood on the upper West Side of Manhattan through her working life starting at the age of 14 to finding the man …
Short Reviews
Short Notices
Shorter reviews of neglected books.
Night Nurse, by Dora Macy (Grace Perkins) (1930)
“Those who read my book, Ex-Mistress,” writes Dora Macy in the foreword to Night Nurse, “will remember that twice I was ill in a hospital — once when I had my baby, and once when …
The Kindness of Strangers, by Stanley Baron (1961)
One thing that’s fascinated me as an adult is how often the traditional concept of family and reality come into conflict. Tolstoy suggested that all happy families are alike, but from my experience unhappy families …
Windfall, by Robert Andrews (1931)
There have been plenty of examples where a film bears little resemblance to the novel that inspired it, but it’s hard to imagine any fan of the classic Pre-Code ensemble comedy If I Had a …
Personals by Eleanor DeLamater (1931)
I first came across Eleanor DeLamater’s novel Personals in a survey of recent (in 1932) novels that the critic considered “experimental” in form. Aside from the first two volumes of John Dos Passos’s landmark U. …
Pick Up by Eunice Chapin (1931)
In late 1931, the budding literary journal Prairie Schooner informed its readers that “Miss Eunice Chapin, formerly of Lincoln” (and formerly of the University of Nebraska, where Prairie Schooner was based) had published her first …
The Young Immigrunts, by Ring Lardner (1920)
This is a guest post by David Quantick. “My parents are both married and ½ of them are very good looking.” This is the story of two very different writers, one an American comic writer …
Miss Abby Fitch-Martin, by Kataryn Loughlin (1952)
History is written by the winners, George Orwell said, and this goes for family history, too. After finishing Miss Abby Fitch-Martin, you sigh in relief that the adage is true in this case. If Kataryn …
The House of Childhood, by Marie Luise Kaschnitz (1956/1990)
“Where is the House of Childhood?” A stranger stops the narrator of Marie Luise Kaschnitz’s short novel in the street to ask this question. “What is it? A museum? A school?” The stranger isn’t sure. …
A Tale of Internment, by Livia Laurent (1942)
“The tribunal has decided that this young lady is to be interned until further order.” So read the notice delivered to Livia Laurent in July 1940. It was, she writes, “a queer thing” that came …
An Honourable Death, by Iain Crichton Smith (1992)
Iain Crichton Smith is best remembered now as a poet, but he published a dozen novels over the space of 25 years, starting with Consider the Lillies (1968), a now-classic tale of the Clearances of …
The Last Days of Floyd Warner: Fire Sermon and A Life, by Wright Morris (1971, 1973)
Wright Morris is, in my opinion, the least-appreciated great American writer of the 20th century. How under-appreciated? Well, the last book-length critical study of his work was published in 1985 and his only biography, Haunted: The …
Via Bodenbach, by Ferenc Körmendi (1935)
If you ever want to experience what it was like to take a train in Europe in the mid-1930s, read Via Bodenbach. Ferenc Körmendi wrote it as an experiment in the use of interior monologue, …
The Mechanical Angel, by Donald Friede (1948)
Publishing used to be a much different business, and no one could better attest to that than Donald Friede. After being kicked out of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, a job in the stockroom of Alfred …
Farewell My Heart, by Ferenc Molnar (1945)
I found a copy of Ferenc Molnar’s little novel Farewell My Heart in Ravenswood Used Books while visiting Chicago recently. It was the sort of book that’s easy to miss on a shelf: no dust …
The Midst of Life, by Mina Curtiss (1933)
The Midst of Life is subtitled “A Romance,” but knowing a bit about Mina Curtiss, I read it assuming it was a work of nonfiction. I was surprised, then, to discover than Houghton Mifflin marketed …
The Darkened Room, by Hilde Spiel (1961)
“Europe is nothin’ on earth but a great big auction, that’s all it is, that bunch of old worn-out places, it’s just a big firesale, the whole rutten thing.” Hilde Spiel quotes this line from …
Lost Heritage, by Bruno Frank (1937)
A young man wanders along the streets of a Czech border town in the late evening looking for a place to stay. His clothes are dirty and torn from walking through the forest. When he …
The Colours of the Night, by Catherine Ross (1962)
The colours of the night in Catherine Ross’s title aren’t romantic in the least. They’re the colors of the signal flares fired from the control tower of RAF Tormartin to confirm that the bombers coming …
Born in Captivity: The Story of a Girl’s Escape, by Barbara Starke (1931)
I wouldn’t recommend the parents of a teenage daughter showing signs of wanderlust leave a copy of Barbara Starke’s Born in Captivity lying around the house. At age sixteen, Starke’s aunt gave her a copy …