The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-09-03
THE PRISONER"
ny Alice Brown. The Macmillan Co,

ny Alice brown. The Macmillan Co., pub
fishers, New York.
A new novel by Alice Brown-this is
an announcement seen all too infre-
ouently in the opinion of those who fol-
low events in the literary world. Here is
an author who stands well in the front
of American writers and who holds that
position not because she produces a book
each year or even once in two years.
but because she writes only when she
has something big to say and has mas
tered the medium through which her idea
may best be presented. 1t was in 1912
that MY Love and T. appeared, first
published anonymously and pronounced
at once subtle analysis of human char
acter, and artistic and pleasing story
too. Since then there has been no long
work. though Robin Hoods Barn. a
short and clever tale, and Children of
Earth the $4,000 prize winning play of
New England life, have come out in
the interim. Now at last a full length
novel from Miss Browns pen is ready
The title of the story is The Prisoner
1t has not, some readers may at once
assume. to do with prison life, but rather
with the readjustment with society of a
man whose sentence in the penitentiary
has just been completed. This man as
a time prior to the opening of the narra
tive had been guilty of a crime. With
every prospect of a brilliant career before
him-he made a mistake for which he
was obliged to pay the penalty. He is
a man of superior intellect, of training
and of charm of personality and he is
resolved, when he is once more free, to
start again, to be man, to live down the
past, and not let the wrongs that he
has done and for which he has paid,
insofar as he is able, ruin his entire
future.
But it is not at all easy as it may seem.
Problems confronting him on every side
one big problem in particular, upon the
satisfactory solution of which everything
that he has planned depends. How the
lcfged-for readjustment is secured, how
in time Jeffrey finds his true happiness.
Is told by Miss Brown with wealth of
color and incident
The theme of THE Prisoner is tremen-
deus and underlying it's externals the
thoughtful reader will find this idea in
- : embodied the message of the
book: t1at every one of us is a prisoner,
that we all live behind walls, because, by
our own actions, by our own wills, we
shut ourselves our from the best in llfe
II was doubtless because Miss Brown
believed this, because she believed that
here was the reason for many of the Ills
and sorrows of society, that she was inn
PEELED to write this novel, which may
truly be judged her greatest achievement,
the mature expression of her art
In a way the story deals with the read
justments of the life of a man after his
release from prison, where he has spent
q term of years as a defaulter. But 1t
is too big in it's scope and too far-reach-
ing in it's vision to be ticketed as a
.prison reform" or an "ex-convict' story
or, indeed. as any special kind of a story.
Jeffrey Blake has learned much that Is
good for him during the years he has
spent in the penitentiary, and, although
he could just as well have learned it all
outside prison walls, he knows that he
never would have done so and recognizes
that those years, after all, have gone to
the making of q better man than he
would ever have been without them. He
comes home to his old father and the
two young step-sisters he has never seem
with the idea that he will go away, some
where out west, and work out new life.
The prison years have not taken away
1.-THE of his energy, his bodily and men
,or MS instinct for Selling and dom
ii ating the moment, There is a delightful
humaneness and a touch of genial hunor
in the disappointment of the two young
women because they cannot soothe and
comfort and coddle him. as they have for
years been planning they would do. He
is SO virile and self-sufficient and direct
30 insensible to sympathy, and so intol-
Grant of pity that their attitude toward
him must be revolutionized at once. But
Jeffrey Blake discovers before long that
he can put his hard earned knowledge to
better use than by going west to build
q new house of life.
THE BORDER LEGION"
Wilhelm. Harper Bros, publishers, New
York.
In ..The Border Legion Zane Grey has
ff1,ox .to
ture and thrilling esca pades.
Joan Randle, a beautiful and coura-