FORMAN, HENRY JAMES. Fire of youth. il *$1.75 (1½c) Little
20–3795
This is the story of the country boy who comes to the city, goes wrong, but eventually finds the right path again. Anthony West is the son of a Nebraska editor, a man whose humble country paper, the Beacon, is known from one end of the land to the other. Anthony goes to Harvard, and following the death, first of father, and then mother, enters New York Journalism. But quicker means of making money appeal to him and he goes into a broker’s office, falls into the toils of an adventuress, is disillusioned and tastes the dregs of life. Then the girl from home comes to New York and hope picks up again. The war breaks out and when his service in the army is finished he is ready to go back to Little Rapids to the position Jim Howard has kept waiting for him on the Beacon.
“The crudeness of the story lies in the fact that Anthony does not as the publishers assert, ‘win through to a fine manhood.’ He wins through to nothing at all. His whole moral life is negative. He repudiates the fire of youth and through satiety and disgust regains his will to obedience under the social law. But his mind and character are what they were.”
− Nation 110:402 Mr 27 ’20 200w
“The plot is firm and logical, even if not strikingly original, but the merit of the book is in the rapidity and variety of its action—the scenes in London being as well done as those in New York—and in the sharply drawn characterization.”
+ − N Y Times 25:148 Mr 28 ’20 360w
“In spite of occasional jarring crudities, the book is worth while. The author seems to understand his characters.” D. Carr
+ − Pub W 97:178 Ja 17 ’20 260w