Despite a career of literary activity that goes back twenty years,
it is almost entirely to the books of the past four or five years
that Rupert Hughes owes his present position as a popular novelist.
In this later work, in such books as “What Will People Say?” “Empty
Pockets” and “We Can’t Have Everything,” he has found his theme
in modern Gotham: New York in the grip of the latest follies, the
insensate, all-day and all-night pursuit of pleasure, the dance, the
eating and drinking, and the squandering. Mr. Hughes’ novels reveal a
range of knowledge of even the remote corners of the great city that
has been painstakingly acquired, and that is used with the sense of
selection of the accomplished story-teller. Only a few months beyond
undergraduate life Owen Johnson published “Arrows of the Almighty”
and “In the Name of Liberty.” They were read by a limited audience,
mildly applauded, and then forgotten. Later, showing the Balzacian
influence, came “Max Fargus,” dealing with the seamy side of New York
law offices. In the point of material success, it could hardly be
considered an improvement on the earlier books. Then, one day, in a
whimsical mood, the author turned back to memories of his schoolboy
years in Lawrenceville. The road that led to success and recognition
had been found. From one end of the land to the other, growing boys,
and boys that had grown up, and boys with gray beards laughed over
every fresh exploit of “The Prodigious Hickey,” and “Dink Stover,”
and “Doc McNooder,” and “The Tennessee Shad,” and “The Triumphant
Egghead,” and “Brian de Boru Finnegan.” Motor parties traveling between
New York and Philadelphia acquired the habit of breaking the journey
at Lawrenceville for the purpose of visiting “The Jigger Shop,” where
Hungry Smeed established the Great Pancake record. Then Mr. Johnson
took one of his heroes from the school to the university, and “Stover
of Yale” was the most talked-of book of a month. Turning to a broader
field, the author found, in the turbulent life of twentieth-century New
York, the background for “The Sixty-first Second,” “The Salamander,”
“Making Money,” “The Woman Gives,” and “Virtuous Wives.”
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