Eyes on Hollywood

CAREER--Phil Stong--Harcourt, Brace ($2).

Critic Van Wyck Brooks, looking sadly out over the U. S. literary scene and many a petered-out career, came to the conclusion that successful authors were not really born that way; at some point in their career they simply sold out. If Critic Brooks were still interested in literary careers that are still in process of petering out, he might well pick Phil Stong's as a glittering example. Author Stong's first published novel, State Fair (TIME, May 9, 1932), roused the tireless hopes of many a novel-addict, seemed to herald the coming of a genuine U. S. writer. But thereafter, in shoddy book after book, Author Stong showed where his heart was and where his treasure lay. By last week no intelligent reader had to be told that Phil Stong's eager gaze was bent not on Parnassus but on the hills of Hollywood.

In spite of all temptations to take his tongue out of his cheek and go up higher, Author Stong remains at the top of his heap, lustily cock-a-doodling. At 36 he is president of the Authors Club. His latest novel. Career, pleased his friends, fooled nobody. A specious, shrewdly contrived melodrama of Iowa small-town life, Career rang all the approved changes on the old tune of the unconsidered village wise man, the turkey-gobbler-villain banker, the solid youth who will go far, and the girl with bad blood who has come far enough. It was in orchestrating this hackneyed melody that Tinpanner Stong showed his real ability. And, whether as a sop to his own conscience or as a fillip to his fans' sentimental sadism, the conclusion was what cinemaddicts call unhappy. But readers closed the book in the faith that Hollywood's all-conquering love would surely be able to move this inconsiderable mountain.

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