Evening star., 1936-09-12
By Mary Carter Roberts.

DD wary CNIef HOOefIS.
AM THE FOX BY Winifred Van
Etten. Boston: Little Brown e. Co.
STEPS GOING DOWN. BY John T.
Mcintyre. New York: Farrar &
Rinehart.
~ 9TH of these books are prize
x winners in recent novelwrit-
J ing competitions. Together
O they represent about $4,000
in awards. That seems as fair way
to introduce them as any.
"I Am the Fox has just carried
off the highly esteemed and coveted
Atlantic novel prize. Its author, We
Iowa. She was one time editor of
Husk, whatever that may be. and she
published a short story in that period
ical which was duly reprinted in Best
College Stories. None of her other
published work is readily available
10 the public" say her present pub
fishers. Her cash award for Il Am
the Fox" is $4,000 and her accruing
honor will assuredly be considerable.
The book is very doughy green apple
pie.
steps Going Down" has won the
ell-nations prize novel competition.
which was sponsored by Farrar g.
Rinehart, the Literary Guild, Warner
Bros. and publishers in IL countries"
The three judges were William Soskin,
Carl Van Doren and Joseph Wood
Krutch. Their decision was unani-
nous, We are told, although 500 scripts
were submitted. The author is
newspaper man with six books and
a play already to his credit. Pub
fishers do not inform us as to the
exact amount of his prize, but it is said
to be about $4,000. His performance is,
however. so immeasurably superior to
Mrs. Van Etten's that, on the basis
OF her takings, simple justice would
suggest that he be given down pay
ment of a couple of billions. His
book comes close to being literature.
It fails through certain defects Of
execution. Hers could never have
been competently written as anything
but very routine clinical report. And
1t fails Of that through sentimentality,
immature thinking. callow preten-
tiousness and downright bad writing.
These may seem to be hard words
with which to greet the triumphant
winner Of one of the outstanding
prizes of the Nation. They are meant
to be.
"I Am the Fox" is. in its purpose.
the story of the inf1iction of certain
inhibitions upon its heroine When
we are introduced to this young wom-
an she Is 26 years of age and repre-
sented as being competent to earn a
living as a private secretary. But
tragedy lies beneath her calm Office
air Of efficiency. Tragedy-yes. For
she cannot admit that life exists
through the phenomena of birth and
death. When it Is suggested to her
that this is the fact she opens her
beautiful mouth and howls Mysteries.
The reader gathers that the knowl-
edge pains her acutely.
Giving us this interesting picture as
an opener, Mrs. Van Etten then en-
ploys the heavy device of laying be-
fore her readers the various past epi-
sodes which have rendered her heroine
so susceptible. When she was in the
second grade she saw a playmate die;
a little later she suffered not un-
common illusion as to the manner in
which children are conceived: still!
later she learned that an idealized
older woman was "frigid" wife; as
years went on she permitted num-
Der of men to make love to her, being
singularly cold-blooded and prissy
about her own participation in such
passages-and so on. Nothing that
befell this $4,000 heroine would seem
to be remarkable enough to make
family physician blink or even fiedg
ling psychiatrist want her case. But
Mrs. Van Etten assures us that it was
her young woman's state OF mind
merits treatment as literature.
To the reviewer it would seem that
nothing legitimate could be gotten
out OF that state of mind beyond a
possible medium length story of the
green sickness. 1t might be built up
TO that. But granting, however, for
the sake Of argument, that there is
material here for a respectable full
length novel. the reader hardly will
be able to concede that Mrs. Van
Etten has succeeded in writing one.
She Is completely unconvincing. Her
work bears constant evidence of su-
perfciality OF thought and the in
trusion OF personal passion. Scarcely
any one, 1t is prophesied, will fail TO
receive the inference that Il Am The
Fox is autobiographical. And the
corallary 70 that is that the author
dramatizes herself into a significance
which no one but herself will perceive.
II this book had not been the
winner Of so august an award, it
certainly would not have been deemed
worthy OF any notice on the present
page except the shortest possible one
in Brief Reviews" And Brief Re-
views" refuses nothing.
So much for $4,000. the birth OF q
new genius and the soundneSs OF the
judges OF the Atlantic prize COM
petition this year This 2Ward Is q
critical outrage.
Steps Going Down" Is vastly
better book, but with that remark let
all suggestion Of comparison vanish.
There is no possible basis for balancing
one Of these prize takers against the
other.
Steps Going Down" is a study in
realistic presentation Of materialistic
attitude toward lie in terms peculiar
70 our time. The life presented is
one OF the subStrata OF a modern
American metropolis. The hero is
Pete, a slum boy who has risen 10
white collar status. In his past he
has done time in a reformatory for
'breaking and entering" he has been
O newspaper reporter and. when We
meet him. he is working in a bank
He is Irish, a Catholic and a great
fellow with the women. A supposed
friend OF his steals some OF the bank s
money and our hero fearing that he
will be questioned. elects to disappear.
The book is the account of his ad-