Spud Johnson & Laughing Horse
Walter ``Spud'' Johnson (1897-1968) was a New Mexico editor, essayist and poet; Laughing Horse was the iconoclastic literary magazine which he began in 1922 at the University of California and published intermittently for almost 20 more years in Santa Fe and Taos. Part literary biography and part anthology, Udall's book provides detailed information about Johnson and other contributors to Laughing Horse along with numerous reprints of works first published there. Udall offers a lively account of Johnson's time at Berkeley, but the narrative of his later life is overpowered by increasingly frequent and lengthy reprints from the magazine. Nevertheless, Udall's gossipy comments on Johnson's connections with writers such as Witter Bynner, Mable Dodge Luhan, D. H. Lawrence and Upton Sinclair provide useful bits of social and literary history. Udall's reprints of poetry, essays and reviews make accessible many previously hard-to-find texts, yet the infamous ``obscene'' letter by Lawrence that led officials at Berkeley to ban Laughing Horse is notably absent. Art historian Udall includes many illustrations, but there is sparse commentary to bolster her claim that Laughing Horse made important contributions to the graphic arts.Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.