Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-08-07

later. IL I'LL INdkeS picturesque anu
most Enthusiastically American rec
ord. The work is a genuine addition
to the history of journalism in our
country, but also can be rated sig
nificant piece of history straight
without the Journalism. 1t is well
worth reading.
LUCKYPENNY. BY Bruce Marshall
New York: E. P. Dutton g. Co.
THE author of this book (who is
also the author of the successful
play. Father Malachy's Miracle')
writes well. He writes very we'll. But
he does not have the gifts required
for making a full-length work OF
fiction. Or. if he does. he has not
used them here. For "Luckypenny
is such a work. and, within its Gus
tomary 4oo-odd pages. there are the
makings Of about six different kinds
of novels. Notwithstanding. as pure
entertainment, the book reads we'll
It begins as the whimsical story
of a humble little accountant of the
kind who gets slapped, man who
does his superiors work and gets
no pay for it. long suffering fellow
unbroken process of catching the
morning train to work. of being i'm
posed on in his Office and of coming
home of evenings to receive the
scorn of the family which he sup
ports-a plot which certainly has
been used great deal in recent years
But then it leaps into melodrama
with complications of beautiful in
ternational spies who fall in love with
the humble chap. and opportunities
which send him suddenly rocketing
to wealth. Well, these stories gen.
orally bring their humble hero to an
unexpected success of some kind. and
so the wealth might be looked for
But the glamorous international spy
with her passion for the erstwhile
clerk, Is a little hard to take down
And next Mr.. Marshall plunges into
a demonstration of the Wickedness Of
the ornaments business, with over.
tones of the menace of Fascism. and
finally carts his hero off to revolu.
tionary Spain. BY that time the
plot has blown to such widely scat.
tered bits that nothing except the
persuasive style keeps you at it. Anc
so, when the hero is killed you have
small regrets, for it is impossible by
then to recognize him as even the
transformed accountant. He has be.
come. instead. half dozen other
fellows. And the other characters
trade identities in much the same
way.
1t is too bad. A man who makes
such neat epigrams and fashions such
excellent paragraphs as Mr.. Marshall
naturally raises the readers hopes
You think. when you being this novel
that you have something really first
rate to your hand. But the authors
inability to make up his mind whether
he is writing a whimsy, melodrama
sermon or a political tract does spoil
the effect. The same plot in the
hands of a worse writer would, one
feels, come off much better Mr.
Marshall is too good for his ma.
terial, or else his material is not
good enough for him. You can de.
eide that for yourselves.
THE FISHMANS. BY H. w. Katz
Translated from the German by
Maurice Samuel. New York: The
Viking Press
THIS is novel of the dispossessed
Jews of Central Europe-not, tc
be sure, of those recently dispossessed
by the German government, but OF
those who were living in Poland and
Ruthenia and along the Russian Dor.
der in the days before the World War
Yet. as the author, himself one of the
people of whom he writes, makes
clear, this book is supposed to define