Books: Mr. Anderson

DARK LAUGHTER—Sherwood Anderson—Boni & Liyeright ($2.50). Life on the Mississippi is a different thing to Mr. Anderson from what it was to Mark Twain. The living writer sends a wife-weary, word-worn, middle-aged reporter vagabonding away from life’s respectable responsibilities along the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio. To this reporter, Bruce Dudley, life in the raw is as appealing as words in the raw are to Mr. Anderson. He goes among the sensual, matter-of-fact river Negroes, and absorbs impressions among white factory workers who are not much different. He becomes a gardener for the owner of an automobile-wheel shop and so meets Aline Grey. Aline is a banker’s daughter, who in earlier years revolted from sex as Paris practiced it, and has married a War-wrecked veteran, only to revolt from her marriage. The affair between Bruce and Aline is very simple and completely carnal, beginning with an appraising glance and ending with a rush upstairs. A chorus of dark, uncowed laughter from the Negro servants follows their departure from town.