BOOTH TARKINGTON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 72, 27 March 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOOTH TARKINGTON.

FOUR SHORT STORIES. Mr. Booth Tarkington, writing (so his publishers, Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd., inform the reader) his fortieth book, did not fall into the customary form of words and call his work "Mr. White and Other Stories." He gives all his stories a place in the title-and calls his book inclusively "Mr. White, The Red Barn, Hell, and Bridewater." There are four stories, with their scenes set three in America and one in Hell. The first two did not particularly intrigue us; but in the second half of the book the author seems* to strike a surer note. In "Bridewater's Half Dollar"' he writes with stark realism about the unemployed and unemployable. Mr. Bridewater and how he spent the half dollar that his daughter gave him. The diologue in this story between the loafers on the square benches in in first-class style, and the story may be called an artistic study in the unpleasant. In "Hell," Mr. Boiling, a rich dull American business man, dies, and we are shown his awakening to the fact that he is dead, a fact that he finds difficult of realisation. This is well done, and at times strongly reminiscent of the first scene in Sutton Vane's "Outward Bound." In these stories Mr. Tarkington's admirers will recognise that he has written something different from all his previous work; and in writing differently he has not allowed the quality of his work to deteriorate.