The Policy King, by Lewis A. H. Caldwell. Chicago, Ill[inois:] New Vistas Publishing House, 366 E. 47th Street; Publisher of New Vistas Magazine, [1945.] 303p.

Joe Marshall, son of a Negro minister on Chicago's south side, is driven from home at seventeen after disgracing the family by serving six months in the state reformatory. Seeing few alternatives for himself, Joe joins a gambling syndicate, and in spite of youth begins his phenomenal rise to king of policy gambling in Chicago. Jerry and Helen, his younger brother and sister, look with disdain on Joe's career, but welcome the money which he provides for their support as they attend college and seek the respectability that he has been denied. Factual and convincing in his approach, Caldwell recreates many facets of Negro life. Joe and Jerry accurately represent the Negro of the street and the bar, while Jerry in his college years represents the black intellectual seeking his place in a white-dominated society, and Helen, as a social aid worker, tries desperately to alleviate the terrible suffering of the thousands of poverty-stricken Negroes on Chicago's welfare rolls. The Policy King is a striking family portrait depicting some of the good and some of the bad in growing up black in 1920s Chicago.

Spoon River Johnny; A Novel of the Midwest at the Turn of the Century, by E. Ray Cameron. New York: Exposition Press, [1960.] 223p.

See No. 341.

Wild Onion, [by] Loren Carroll. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, MCMXXX. 312p.

The life and times of Joe Dulac, a Chicago gangster, are the major concerns of this novel of the 1920s. From his youth and apprenticeship in the underworld to his violent demise executed by a rival gang member, Joe's story reads like a series of newspaper articles generously embellished with psychological interpretation. The Chicago setting, vivid with description of high life and low in the nation's second city, is well defined and seemingly authentic. The characters are tough, hard-hearted, and mean, with no hint of humor or sentimentality to provide relief from the stark realism that pervades the entire novel.

Book Review Digest, 1930, p. 173.

Full Fathom Five, [by] John Stewart Carter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1965. 246p.

The three chapters that make up Full Fathom Five each concerning a different person, could stand alone as literary works, but the same person narrates each chapter, lending continuity. The narrator, a poet and grandson of a robber baron who founded the Scott Dynasty of Chicago, tells of the three men he most loves and admires. The first, his Uncle Tom teaches him of life and love; the second, musician Edward Sciarrha, introduces him to culture; the third, his loving and unapproachable father, gives all things to his son but himself. The setting for this, Carter's first novel, is the world--Paris, Washington, Mexico, Milan, but most of all, Chicago--for the action always returns to the Scott estate, ruled over with a firm hand by a matriarchal grandmother. Filled with pleasant reminiscences tempered by time, the novel describes the leisurely world of the early twentieth century.

Book Review Digest, 1965, p. 207.

Evvie, by Vera Caspary. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, [1960.] 341p.

Evvie and her friend Louise share a studio apartment and most of their confidences. When Evvie is found murdered, a scandal develops involving one secret which has remained unshared. The story takes place in Chicago in the 1920s when financially independent girls were growing in number and seeking freedoms previously denied to them.

Book Review Digest, 1961, p. 232.

Music in the Street, by Vera Caspary. Author of "White Girl." New York: Sears Publishing Company, Inc., [1930.] 306p.

Mae Thorpe is a cosmetics counter clerk who meets her Prince Charming in the drugstore where she works. She is sublimely happy with their dating relationship until he starts pressuring her to sleep with him. Her problems become even more complicated with his marriage to his boss' daughter, the collapse of this marriage, the wife's threats of suicide, and Mae's unsuccessful abortion. An uneasy solution is provided through the devotion and generosity of Mae's middle-aged boss, who marries her and agrees to call the unborn child his own. Chicago working girls of the Prohibition years are carefully described--some popular, some lonely, some lucky, some not--as they live together in apartments and rooms or in the Rolfe House for self-supporting young women.

Thelma, by Vera Caspary. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, [1952.] 342p.

Thelma is a sermon on the evils of materialism. As a young girl, Thelma finds her family circumstances a source of deep embarrassment causing her to grow up with a fierce determination to reach the height of society for which she feels herself properly suited. As a young married woman she goes to extremes to guarantee every happiness for her daughter. It is not surprising later that the girl's marriage runs into trouble; what is surprising is her inmate good sense. The greater part of this novel is set in Chicago and covers a period from the early 1900s to the years following World War II. Narrated by a close friend of Thelma's, the story is considerably weakened by the unconvincing explanations of the narrator's sources of intimate details.

Book Review Digest, 1952, p. 159.

Thicker Than Water, by Vera Caspary. New York: Liveright, Inc. Publishers, [1932.] 426p.

See No. 343.

The White Girl, by Vera Caspary. New York: J. H. Sears & Company, Inc. Publishers. [1929.] 305p.

Solaria is a light-skinned black who, when personal and financial pressures accumulate, moves from Chicago to New York where she passes for white. She becomes a model, falls in love, and befriends a woman with a drug habit, all the while beset by fears of being caught in her deception. This story of courage and frustration reveals the wide acceptance of the white supremacy concept during the 1920s.

Book Review Digest, 1929, p. 162.

Joan Kennedy, by Henry Channon. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. Publishers, [1929.] 255p.

A young Englishwoman of noble birth marries an American after her English fiancé is killed during World War I. They live happily in England until the death of her millionaire father-in-law necessitates a trip to her husband's home in a large American city--presumably Chicago. The visit to America becomes a forced immigration when Joan discovers that the terms of the will decree that her son's inheritance will be cut off if they again leave the country. Most of the story is concerned with Joan's efforts to adjust to her situation. Though somewhat slow of pace, the book provides an Englishwoman's view of life among Chicago's upper class in the 1920s.

Book Review Digest, 1929, p. 168.

Believe My Love, by Laurene Chinn. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., [1962.] 221p.

Celia Carter and Ralph Howe meet at a joint YMCA-YWCA conference in Estes Park, Colorado. As the conference progresses and friendship turns to love, Ralph struggles with his emotions. Realizing the difficulties which such a love must overcome--Ralph is Oriental; Celia is Caucasian; the time is the 1920s when interracial marriages are not generally accepted--he attempts to avoid any commitment to a lasting relationship. The conference ends; the couple part; and Celia returns home, finishes school, and moves to Chicago. But Ralph and Celia's story does not end on the last day of the conference amid farewells and promises as one might expect. Despite inner conflicts and outward pressures from family and friends, the two maintain a friendship and eventually find a workable solution to their dilemma. Believe My Love is a thoughtful and compassionate presentation of the problems of prejudice and interracial marriage in a 1930s Chicago setting.

Uncertain Voyage, [by] Arthur Walcott, [pseud.] New York: Atwood & Knight, 1936. 384p.

Arthur Walcott, a man of integrity, culture, and pride seems out of context in the fast, wealthy society crowd of 1920s Chicago. Aware of the adultery and fornication that are accepted as a way of life by his friends and associates, Walcott manages to avoid a liaison of his own and ignore those formed by his friends, and still maintain his status in the group. Then after twenty years of married life, his wife Anita becomes Ralph Gilbert's lover. Uncertain Voyage is the story of Anita's affair, Arthur's distress, a European cruise taken by the two couples, Gilbert's death, and its effect on the Walcott marriage. This book is the pseudonymous thinly veiled story of the author and his wife, and their social life revolving around Chicago's North Shore Country Club. The novel was written in anger following the suicide of Churchill's wife, and exposes or parodies many of the most prominent members of Chicago society during the 1920s. Shortly after publication, persons portrayed in the novel brought pressures on the author to have the book withdrawn from circulation. Even review copies were recalled, and all but a few rare copies have been destroyed.

New Yorker, 12/26/1936, p. 55.

When Mother Wore a Bell Skirt and Father, a Derby Hat; A romance of Henrici's from 1868 to 1943, recounted by Herma Clark on the Occasion of our Seventy-Fifth Anniversary. Chicago: Henrici's; Printed for the Entertainment of Our Guests, October, 1943. Unpaged.

See No. 366.

Dragon's Cave; A Theocritus Lucius Westborough Story, by Clyde B. Clason. New York: Published for The Crime Club by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1939. 269p.

Theocritus Lucius Westborough, professor of history with emphasis on Rome and the classics, is an unobtrusive little man with an insatiable curiosity and an amazing gift for inductive reasoning. A friend of Lieutenant John Mack of the Chicago police force, Westborough accompanies Mack on a call and becomes fascinated by the illogical circumstances surrounding a murder. Both Mack and Westborough are puzzled by the evidence, but perseverance and logic pay off when, after two more deaths and some entertaining maneuvers on the professor's part, the murderer is apprehended.

Book Review Digest, 1939, p. 188.

The Fifth Tumbler; Introducing Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough, a mild little man who meddled in murder--with surprising results, [by] Clyde B. Clason. Garden City N[ew] Y[ork:] Published for The Crime Club, Inc. by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1936. 303p.

Murder in a Chicago hotel attracts several people to the scene of the crime, among them Theocritus Lucius Westborough, professor of Roman history. As a thorough investigation of the murder gets underway, several hotel guests and employees become suspects, since many had either motive or opportunity to commit the act. When police become thoroughly confused, the logical reasoning of Professor Westborough enables him to sort out the over-abundance of evidence, determine the murderer, and explain the case to baffled detectives and wondering guests.

Book Review Digest, 1936, p. 193.

The Purple Parrot, A Theocritus Lucius Westborough Story, by Clyde B. Clason. Garden City, N[ew] Y[ork:] Published for The Crime Club, Inc. by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1937. 319p.

Theocritus Lucius Westborough's methods are unorthodox, but his results unquestionable when the little professor and Lieutenant Mark of the Chicago Police Department delve into the murder of old Hezekiah Morse to prove Morse's granddaughter innocent.

Book Review Digest, 1937, p. 199.

Scarface, by Armitage Trail [pseud. New York:] A Dell Book, [1959.] n. p.

At age eighteen, Tony Guarino kills Al Spingola, a Chicago gang leader, in a daring confrontation which earns him the respect of the underworld and marks the beginning of his rise to king of Chicago's gangsters. His rise and fall follow closely the career of Al Capone, on whose life the novel is based, and the story is an adequate presentation of one segment of Chicago life and history during the 1920s and 1930s.

Cecily and the Wide World; A Novel of American Life Today, by Elizabeth F. Corbett. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916. 344p.

When Cecily's physician husband goes to work in a distant city and she remains to continue her stenographic career, serious misunderstandings develop, and both husband and wife find other romantic interests before an automobile accident helps bring about a reconciliation. Set partly in Chicago in the second decade of the century, the novel expresses what was considered in 1916 to be a liberal view of such social concerns as divorce and careers for women.

Book Review Digest, 1916, p. 127.

The House Across the River, by Elizabeth Corbett. Author of "The Young Mrs. Meigs." New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1934. 274p.

A touch of mystery in this romantic little novel set in a Chicago suburb called Hillport makes it one of Corbett's better stories. No one suspects that Ann Farwell, a refugee wife from France, has a scandal in her past until the tenant of a house across the river divulges that he knows her secret. Although he is murdered before his efforts at blackmail are successful, Anne's problems are only compounded, since she becomes a prime suspect. The Illinois setting is of no significance, but Corbett fans will find it hard to put this one down.

Book Review Digest, 1934, p. 206.

The Old Callahan Place; A Novel by Elizabeth Corbett. New York: Appleton-Century, [1966.] 311p.

See No. 383.

Nan Thursday, by Virginia Dale. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., [1944.] 174p.

Nan Thursday and Poppy Dublin are a popular singing team on radio until Poppy's death in a fall from the balcony of her Chicago hotel suite. Convinced that Poppy did not commit suicide, Nan turns detective and begins to piece together Poppy's story. Set in the early 1940s, Nan Thursday is reminiscent of the radio serials of that era.

Book Review Digest, 1944, p. 180.

The Chicago Bandit; A Comedy. An Interesting Chicago All Night Story. Hollywood, California: Copyrighted by the Universal Scenario Corporation, 1935. 9p.

The adventures of a country boy on his way to a party in Chicago become first confused then absurd as he is distracted from his intents by inept bandits, unconvincing police officers, and a beautiful woman who arouses more than casual interest in the naive youth. A brief prose sketch for a motion picture production this was never intended for mass production and distribution. For that reason, the poor style and grammatical errors which the publication contains can be excused, if not overlooked. But the trite, unimaginative, humorless story is beyond the capabilities of the greatest movie producer to film successfully.

The Nut and Bolt, [by] Charles W. Davis. New York, Washington [and] Hollywood: Vantage Press, [1972.] 202p.

George Parsons narrates, in unedited street language, the story of his younger days. The reminiscence begins with his father's remarriage and move to Moline, and includes his enlistment in a CCC camp at Mt. Carroll, his first jobs in the Monmouth, Rock Island, and Moline areas, periods spent in Detroit, in the Army stationed in Europe, and in New Jersey. Emphasis is on his sexual exploits and the social and economic problems faced by black youth in the Depression and the decades that follow.

Sullivan, by Clyde Brion Davis. New York [and] Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., [1940.] 279p.

Gilbert Sullivan is hitchhiking west through Arizona to get as far away from Chicago and Mildred as he can, when he is picked up by the eccentric McKinley Williams who invites him to share his rattletrap Star, his expenses, and his adventures. As the two wander into Mexico then north to California. McKinley entertains Sullivan with stories of selling Bibles to dead people, attempts at establishing a fund to build a monument to the memory of Judas Iscariot, and of posing for a time as a famous Russian artist. Often in a pensive mood, Sullivan daydreams of his life in Chicago as a struggling art student, of his former job with the Chicago Argus-Globe, and of his life with Mildred. Although the novel is set in Mexico and the southwest, much of the action is developed through flashbacks to Chicago. This is a rousin' good story in the Mark Twain tradition.

Book Review Digest, 1940, p. 227-8.

Love Without Money, by Floyd Dell. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Incorporated; On Murray Hill, [1931.] 365p.

Gretchen Cedarbloom and Peter Carr engage in the battle of the generations as though they are the only teen-agers ever to feel the constraint of parental authority. Defying their elders, often for the reactions their unconventional behavior will trigger, Gretchen and Peter exercise their wills, gradually maturing over the span of a year until they are ready to exert their independence. Unwilling to accept the confinement of hometown existence, they move to Chicago, obtain jobs, and settle down in their own flat to live together until the time when they shall decide either to marry or part. With Gretchen and Peter, Floyd Dell has developed characters so universal that their story is as poignant today as it was in 1931.

Book Review Digest, 1931, p. 271.

An Unmarried Father, A Novel by Floyd Dell. New York: George H. Doran Company, [1927.] 301p.

His law course at Harvard completed, Norman Overbeck returns to Vickley, his hometown, and enters practice in his father's well-established law firm. Settling resolutely, if somewhat uncomfortably, into the rigid confines of middle-class, small-town life, Norman becomes engaged to Madge Ferris and prepares to accept what life in Vickley has to offer. Then a letter arrives from Chicago announcing that he is the father of a child recently born out of wedlock. A trip to the city confirms the facts that the child exists, that the mother does not want it, and that Norman does. Condemned in Vickley for his actions, Norman abandons his life there for a second chance in Chicago. Floyd Dell writes convincingly of the turmoil of young love, the conventionality of small-town life, and the problems of a single man trying to rear a child in the city. Typical of Dell, the characters are incurable romantics, but they are beautiful and appealing creations which the reader will find impossible to abandon until their stories are told.

Book Review Digest, 1927, p. 203-4.

All That Was Mortal, by David Dempsey. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1958. 480p.

See No. 401.

Three Priests, by Joseph Dever. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958. 453p.

The three priests in this story are assigned to a Chicago area Catholic Church in the 1930s. One works to fight political corruption in city government, one edits the archdiocesan newspaper, and one is active in church politics. Dramatizing politics within the city and the church, the author compares the lives of the three men, showing the influence of each in his own sphere.

Book Review Digest, 1959, p. 287-8.

We Accept with Pleasure, [by] Bernard DeVoto... Boston: Little Brown, and Company, 1934. 471p.

Scenes of Chicago, Evanston and Northwestern University appear in the first portion of this novel about an eastern aristocratic family. The greater part of the story is set in Webersham Valley, near Boston, where the cousins, their wives, and friends gather in the late 1920s to reminisce about their World War I experiences in France; while around them quiet storms of love, fear, and ambition break forth, have their play, and gradually, painfully, subside.

Book Review Digest, 1934, p. 249.

Angels Can't Do Better, by Peter DeVries. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., [1944.] 181p.

Peter DeVries' third novel, Angels Can't Do Better, hints of the rollicksome humor that pervades most of DeVries' writing. The hero of this tale is a young college instructor who runs for alderman of Chicago's ward eighteen, even though he incurs the wrath of the political machine and lacks the support of his fellow teachers, his father, and most of the ward. DeVries' zany characters and ridiculous situations make the serious business of being a Chicago gangster during the 1930s seem as simple as child's play. This is a delightful portrayal of a time in Chicago's history which is usually presented in a heavy-handed, brutal manner.

Book Review Digest, 1944, p. 195.

The Blood of the Lamb, by Peter DeVries. Boston [and] Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, [1961.] 246p.

With Don Wanderhope as the central figure, Peter DeVries chronicles the lives of the Wanderhope family from the early years of the twentieth century to the 1950s. From his youth in Chicago, bearing the tribulations of an alcoholic father, to the death of his daughter from leukemia years later, Wanderhope struggles with his religion, trying to retain his faith as death and misfortune befall his family again and again. Not the typical exercise in hilarity for which DeVries is best known, The Blood of the Lamb is an angry autobiographical novel striking out at God and man.

Book Review Digest, 1962, p. 301-2.

But Who Wakes the Bugler? by Peter DeVries. Illustrated by Charles Addams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1940. 297p.

More nonsense than novel, But Who Wakes the Bugler? is concerned with George Thwing, kind-hearted, wildly alluring proprietor of a Chicago boardinghouse. Pursued by women he doesn't want to marry, imposed upon by friends and acquaintances who seem in constant need, and surrounded by the zaniest group of crackpots ever to occupy the pages of a novel, Mr. Thwing is given ample opportunity to poke fun at the world's greatest curiosity--man (giving equal time to woman, of course). And poke fun he does! Humor of the bold and forthright variety permeates the book, leaving few human characteristics untouched.

Book Review Digest, 1940, p, 247.

The Handsome Heart, by Peter DeVries. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., [1943.] 216p.

The hero of DeVries' second novel is an escapee from a mental hospital in southern Illinois. Assuming the name of Brian Charles, which combines his own first name with that of his hated older brother, Brian Carston makes his way northward toward Chicago by hitchhiking, working as a gravedigger on a highway construction crew, unloading trucks--anything to keep body and soul together. The thin line between sanity and insanity is pointed up as Brian, the ingenious, uninhibited brother deemed legally insane, encounters his malicious, grasping, successful older brother, Charles. DeVries' plot vacillates between serious psychological writing and tongue-in-cheek satire. Far from the absurdities that characterize its author as a major American humorist, The Handsome Heart contains a few flights into fancy which are immediately recognizable as distinctively DeVries.

Book Review Digest, 1943, p. 212.

Chosen Country, [by] John Dos Passos. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1951. 485p.

The author's outstanding prose style carries this novel along, giving impetus to the plot which is frequently sidetracked with interesting detours into the lives of secondary characters. The book begins with a biographical chapter concerning the hero's father, and includes many similar portraits before the threads are pulled together just in time for a happy ending. Jay Pignatelli, the son of a colorful lawyer and his beloved mistress, spends most of his childhood in France so that this indiscretion of his father's will not become well known in American circles. As a young man, Jay has his own share of adventures in Europe and the Near East during and after World War I, but generally lacks his father's ability to come out the winner, until, back in Chicago, he wins Lulie. Other scenes include Ohio and Wisconsin, New York City and Denver, and the events span the years from 1848 to 1930. The only book Dos Passos ever wrote about the Chicago he knew so well, Chosen Country contains only minor descriptions of the town.

Book Review Digest, 1951, p. 245.

Green Light, [by] Lloyd C. Douglas. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1935. 326p.

Dean Harcourt of Trinity Cathedral, in a city which the author leaves nameless but which can only be Chicago, possesses a rare understanding of life's suffering gained through an earlier bout with polio. Through religious counseling, Dean Harcourt imparts peace, understanding, and a workable philosophy to all who enter his chambers. Green Light is the story of Newell Paige, a young and talented surgeon who becomes disillusioned because of a fatal mishap in the operating room, and Phyllis Dexter, the daughter of the victim. Together Newell and Phyllis find peace and love through their association with Dean Harcourt. Douglas relies on coincidence to the point of absurdity; he confuses his story with a steady progression of superfluous subplots; and he belabors faith mercilessly; but he does it with such self-assurance and bold optimism that none but the most blatant scoffer can fail to be impressed.

Book Review Digest, 1935, p. 277-8.

Invitation to Live, [by] Lloyd C. Douglas. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press Cambridge, [1940.] 303p.

Dean Harcourt of Chicago's Trinity Cathedral is a cripple, but spiritually he has the strength of a multitude. It is Dean Harcourt's spiritual strength to which Barbara Breckenridge, Lee Richardson, and scores of others owe their emotional stability, their psychological adjustment, and sometimes even their lives. A widely read inspirational novel set in the late 1930s, Invitation to Live continues the story Of Dean Harcourt, who was first introduced in Douglas' earlier novel, Green Light.

Book Review Digest, 1940, p. 255.

Only Love Lasts, A Novel [by] Rosamond DuJardin. Philadelphia [and] London: J. B. Lippincott Company, [1937.] 312p.

Tobey's early experiences with her father and grandfather make her determined never to marry, never to fall in love. She leaves her home in rural Illinois to get away from a cruel stepfather, and goes to work in Chicago, where her striking beauty attracts the attentions of many men. After some disheartening experiences, she is finally ready to accept happiness offered to her through the love of a young man from home. Such stereotyped characterizations as the virtuous and unselfish heroine are typical of the popular romances of the 1930s, although such attributes are not widely appreciated today.

Book Review Digest, 1937, p. 292.

Mr. Dooley at His Best, [by] Finley Peter Dunne. Edited by Elmer Ellis of the University of Missouri, with forward by Franklin P. Adams. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938. 291p.

See No. 418.

Mr. Dooley: Now and Forever, Created by Finley Peter Dunne. Selected, with Commentary and Introduction, by Louis Filler. Stanford, California: Academic Reprints, 1954. 299p.

See No. 421.

Mr. Dooley on Ivrything and Ivrybody, by Finley Peter Dunne. Selected and with an Introduction by Robert Hutchinson. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., [1963.] 244p.

See No. 422.

Mr. Dooley on Making a Will and Other Necessary Evils. By the Author of "Mr. Dooley Says," "Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War," etc. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1919. 221p.

See No. 423.

Mr. Dooley on the Choice of Law, Compiled and Arranged by Edward J. Bander. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Michie Company, Law Publishers, [1963.] 231p.

See No. 424.

Mr. Dooley Remembers, The Informal Memoirs of Finley Peter Dunne. Edited with and Introduction and Commentary by Philip Dunne. Boston [and] Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, [1963.] 307p. (An Atlantic Monthly Press Book)

See No. 425.

The World of Mr. Dooley, Edited with an Introduction by Louis Filler. New York, N[ew] Y[ork:] Collier Books, [1962.] 253p.

See No. 431.