“This book of Mary Vorse’s is a thrilling and a perfectly sane and down-on-the-ground contribution to the history of that historic steel strike of last winter. It is a book really of stories—of stories of men and of women and of children and of homes.” W: Hard
+ New Repub 25:51 D 8 ’20 1000w
“At the beginning of chapter II there is a really powerful bit of writing.... And there are other pieces of really good writing in the book. The rest too frequently tends toward the bathos of film captions and magazine stories. The story she tells is not only improbable, but she puts her own opinions and feelings into the mouths of her Slovaks with a ruthless roughness. Where they do not speak as she would have them she makes them think her thoughts.”
− + N Y Times p23 Ja 16 ’21 1200w
“On the whole, she has done an illuminating bit of work. It is propaganda rather than detached painting, but it is propaganda of a high quality. At times one regrets that the artist in Mrs Vorse was not more rigorous in its exactions on the other side of her personality, but, after all, no one else has given so moving a picture of the routine of life in the steel towns.” W. L. C.
+ − Survey 45:676 F 5 ’21 220w
VORSE, MARY MARVIN (HEATON). Ninth man. il *$1.25 (7½c) Harper
20–15068
This story, set in a medieval Italian city, is a study of hate and fear. Mazzaleone, the conqueror of the city, has decreed that it shall mete out its own punishment and to each ninth person passing in review before him he has given a black disc which signifies power over life or death. For within thirty days each possessor of a disc may designate secretly one who is to be put to death. First mad lust for life breaks loose, then hatred and revenge, and lastly fear. But among the frenzied populace there moves one who preaches love and forgiveness and who offers to take on himself the death for all. This is Brother Agnello, who carries one of the black discs and who was first shown the way to keep his own hands clean and then the way to redeem his townsmen.