The Sun Field

The Sun Field*

Obvious Care Is Lavished Upon an Advanced Specimen The Story. George Wallace was a Yale man who wrote poetry. After college he went into newspaper work and grew properly ashamed of ever having versified--until he met Judith Winthrop. Judith's ancestors had chartered the Mayflower or something, but she was as advanced a specimen of our modern intelligentsia as you could find. She had a Shaw-green room and a dozen pet paradoxes and wrote articles for Tomorrow, a journal of opinion, in forming the world that Charles S. Chaplin could act. George fell in love with her and she might have married him-- he was such a good listener--until he spoiled his chances by taking her to a ball game. There she saw Tiny Tyler, the home-run kind, make an incredible catch, "as God might pick a comet." She insisted on meeting him. He wore diamond shirt studs in his evening clothes, but that didn't matter--the result of meeting was amorosity at first sight. Judith did her best to play Cleopatra to Tiny, but her ancestors were against her--she couldn't be a bad woman no matter how hard she tried. And besides Tiny respected her too much --so she simply had to marry him. Things went all right for a while, but then Tiny fell into a batting-slump and Judith refused to ETO to Cuba with him after the World's Series because she could not get a passport except in her married name. So Tiny painted Cuba pink in the company of a vaudeville soubrette, " Toots " Trimble, and grew fat and pasty. He returned to Judith at last, respectful and repentant, but Judith wasn't having any repentance today, and refused to have him respect her, so they quarreled and parted. Meantime Mr. Trimble named Tiny as a co-respondent and Poor George now did his best to win his beloved--he was even willing to sacrifice himself to make her a dishonest woman if she'd agree--but just then Miller Huggins stepped in and pled with her to make it up with Tiny for the sake of the Yankees and Tiny wired that he'd do his best not respect her if she came along. So she went down to the training camp where Tiny was perspiring and in one final scene with Tiny and George, she and Tiny discovered they really were in love with each other and George that he was just the other man who has the big scene in the third act. So Tiny and Judith stayed married--Tiny threw out his arm and had to give up baseball for politics--Judith produced a novel that the rest of the intelligentsia thought was better than Jurgen, and a baby who was to be a home-run-king when he grew--and George wrote The Sun Field. The Significance. An interesting and amusing book, readable, vivid and unashamedly flavored with the author's own personality--though with a tendency to lapse into a rather mechanical cleverness. Sometimes the nifties come a little too fast, and Judith is, for the most part, a tedious nuisance, in spite of the obvious care lavished upon her. But Tiny and George are convincing throughout. A good novel--better than most--even if neither Judith nor the author have yet discovered, apparently, that radical preachiness can be just as dull as any other brand.

The Author. Heywood Campbell Broun was born in Brooklyn, December 7, 1888. He studied at Harvard (1906-1910), has been connected with the Morning Telegraph and New York Tribune as sportswriter, war correspondent, dramatic critic and colyumist, and at the present time his column in the New York World, It Seems To Me, is unique in its field. He is the author of Seeing Things at Night and Pieces of Hate (books of short essays and sketches) and The Boy Grew Older (a novel).

In 1917 Mr. Broun married Miss Ruth Hale, a critic of books and motion pictures. She has been an active figure in the struggle for women's rights and for ethical freedom. She has been President of the Lucy Stone League, members of which do not believe in taking their husband's names.

* THE SUN FIELD--Heywood Broun--Putnam ($2.00).