BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS IN THE HERALD TRIBUNE BOOK REVIEW

The biography getting the most review attention that Sunday in both the Herald Tribune and Times was LAFCADIO HEARN by Vera McWilliams. Hearn's writings at the turn of the century had played a large part in the positive American perceptions of Japan before the war. Reviewer DeLancey Ferguson appears to have been no Hearn fan, writing snidely that his partisans had been quiet of late. Ferguson, who was an expert on Burns and Twain, wrote that McWilliams focused on the writer's life rather than on an analysis of his work, which, the reviewer continued, might be appropriate because his life was more interesting than his writing. Present day critics and readers disagree. Hearn is still read today and McWilliams’s book is considered a definitive biography. The book is in print.

ALOHA by Armine von Tempski was reported as among their top sellers by a couple of the bookstores surveyed by the Herald Tribune this week. Reviewer Ernestine Evans, a prominent journalist, author, editor and literary agent, wrote that this was the perfect book for readers who can't decide between "fiction and biography, romantic travel or how-to-do-it book." It was the second installment in the memoirs of the author, who had died in 1943 in her 50s (her date of birth is in dispute). She had written several novels about Hawaii, where she had been born and raised, the daughter of a Polish/Prussian father and English mother. Evans admired the way that the author captured the sea and skies, trees and flowers, the tourists and the native Hawaiians, the Chinese merchants and "rainbow colored" children. After the death of their father, Armine and her sister earn their living by turning the property of a family friend into a dude ranch. Subsequent events found her moving back and forth between New York, London, the West Coast and Hawaii. Evans wrote that the sometimes the book had "a jungle of writing," adding that she personally did not care for words like "teen-agers." At times Evans got lost as far as time and place in the narrative but allows that the problem might have been due more to her own shortcomings than the author's. Overall she found it a "delightful life story." The book, as Aloha, My Love to You, is in print.

Other biographies, memoirs and autobiographies reviewed were:

GUY GILPATRIC'S FLYING STORIES, a collection of autobiographical aviation stories, mostly set in the 1920s and 1930s, from Gilpatric, a journalist, novelist and short story writer, who had been flying since he was 16.

YANKEE STOREKEEPER by R.E. Gould was reviewed by Mary Ross who called it “a salty and pleasantly rambling record of a life that has had a lot of fun as well as hard work.” It was “more than a little illuminating to people who buy their pre-cooked, hyper-packaged foods at supermarkets.” Gould was a tough cookie and a hard bargainer who saw the era of the general store coming to an end in the 1920s when the Sunday-dinner orders began to level off. He went on to corner the gasoline-pump business at his end of the state. In print.

LEG MEN IN SEVEN LEAGUE BOOTS by Jack Kofoed was illustrated by Crawford Parker. It was stories and anecdotes from a veteran reporter and sports columnist who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s about New York life from the viewpoint of the guy from a small town who comes to the big city to make a success. The unsigned review stated that “Mr. Kofoed taps his typewriter brightly, but his batting average for accuracy slumps in his sketch of O.O. McIntyre who never (1) lived in a penthouse (2) had a footman or (3) wore purple evening clothes.”

BROADSIDE TO THE SUN by Don West was the memoirs of a farmer in the Ozarks. A return to the earth was a popular theme of the moment. Reviewer Robert Peck wrote that it was like sitting on a back porch, listening to yarns while drinking the author's homemade pawpaw wine.

MY COUNTRY SCHOOL DIARY: AN ADVENTURE IN CREATIVE TEACHING by Julia Weber was a condensation of the diary she kept during her four years teaching in the 1930s at a one-teacher school in Stony Grove, then an isolated New Jersey valley near the Delaware Water Gap. Her students ranged in age from 5 to 16. Available on demand.

GENERAL GEORGE CROOK: HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, edited and annotated by Martin F. Schmitt, was reviewed by Civil War historian Avery Craven of the University of Chicago. This was the first publication of the autobiography of a 19th-century general who had served in the Civil War and the Indian uprisings. Craven wrote that it was a good source for the conditions in the Army at that time. Crook wrote of the petty tyranny of officers, as well as their frequent drunkenness, blasphemy and obscenity. The men looked forward to raids against the Indians as frolics to relieve their boredom. Crook gradually grew to see the Indians as fellow human beings rather than as obstacles to be cleared and became their advocate. In print.