Books: Gross Satire

HE DONE HER WRONG—Milt Gross— Doubleday,Doran ($2). Funnyman Gross can write entertainingly, uproariously, like several kinds of fool, several kinds of knave, but in this book he has not written a word. He Done Her Wrong is a “novel” in pictures, a takeoff on anything you like to mention: melodrama, cinema, picture-novels, the U. S., Virtue, Vice, comic strips.

The plot is swift, kaleidoscopic. Trapper Hero saves Dance-Hall Heroinefrom a fate worse than Death. Villain, a smooth little thing with a grin nothing can eradicate, admires Hero’s prowess in the ensuing free-for-all, goes into partnership with him in the trapping business. Hero is brawny but brainless, is easily tricked by Villain, who runs off with Heroine to wicked Manhattan. When Hero discovers he has been bad, the forest suffers, his rage spares nothing. He sets out in pursuit. Meanwhile Villain’s fortunes suffer. He encounters a penny-in-the-slot machine, tries to work it, throws good money after bad. In increasing frenzy he dissipates all his ill-gotten gains on the infernal machine. Hero, after misadventures, tracks him down. From this point the plot thickens, twists, jumps like a rubber band. Its final fillip knocks Villain on the chin, Hero and Heroine into each other’s arms. In a few minutes you have seen, with many a thrill, many a laugh, nary a tear, Life’s panorama sweep by.

The Author. Artist-Author Milt Gross is famed for his monologs in the Bronx dialect, Nize Baby, Conversations in a Dumb Waiter, which first appeared in the Manhattan World. Since then his syndicated Sunday comic strip, Count Screwloose of Toulouse, has made him a nationally-advertised product. Short, dark, blue-eyed, curly-headed, he is lively, kindly, entertaining. He is married, has three children. Oct. 1 he left the World, became a Hearstman. Other books: Nize Baby, Hiawatta, Famous Fimmales from History.