The Hawkeye*

The Hawkeye*

He Read "The New York Weekly "

The Story. This is the story of the education of Fremont McConkey, Hawkeye--how he and the State of Iowa grew up together. The bare-foot boy, born in a sod hut, who assimiliated a curious education from back numbers of The New York Weekly, The Lives of the Presidents and the Victorian poets, became a leading citizen--a prosperous, successful newspaper editor. The waste and beautiful prairies were civilized into the richest farming land in the world. In some six decades the people of that region had bridged the gulf between a life like that of the border ballads--the life of the pioneer--and the modern life of telephone and radio. And the tale of how that enormous leap was made is as fascinating as anything in history.

Which is not to say that the book is merely sugar-coated history, for it is not. It has little mechanical intricacy of plot but a strong thread binds it together--the thread of Fremont's inevitable and typically American struggle up from the status of a "neatherd"#151;his adventures in local politics--his love for Winifred Ashe and their runaway marriage--his friendship for the outlaw Bushyagers--Winifred's tragic death and the unhappy chance that left Fremont a widower, with two children to support and the debts of his somewhat rascally-father-in-law to shoulder--the great Bushyager murder trial and its subsequent lynching-bee and Fremont's facing of the mob that came to call him to account for his protection of Bent Bushyager-- his second marriage and the beginning of his fame as a newspaper- paragrapher--his final happiness. Vivid characters move across the spacious stage of the story: Fremont's great-hearted mother with her pipe and her commonsense; Raws Upright; Captain Ashe and his three pretty daughters; Paul Holbrook, the local "dude' and amateur politician. There is a certain largeness of incident and method like that of the prairies themselves.

The Significance. An able, interesting historical novel of the development of middle America in its crucial years, well written, easy to read and packed with memories of a now as wholly departed as that of the Vikings. Natural, sincere fiction never doughy or pretentious-- lacking only in that chancy quality of genius without which no novel, however able,, lives longer than its own time. But for all that a good, an entertaining, a very American book.

The Critics. William Allen White: "To understand [the U. S. Senators] Brookhart, Shipstead, Magnus Johnson ... La Follette and to understand how this group of intensely practical, indomitable progressives is sure to dominate the politics of the middle western Mississippi Valley during this whole generation -- one must read The Hawkeye."

New York Tribune: "It belongs with Hough's Covered Wagon, Miss Gather's One of Ours, the earlier studies of Garland and other of our sturdy native writers. . . ."

The Author. (John) Herbert Quick, like Fremont McConkey, was born in Iowa (Oct. 23, 1861), reared on a farm, educated in country schools. He has had a varied career as teacher, lawyer, associate editor of La Follette's Weekly, editor of Farm and Fireside and free-lance writer. He fought the boodlers of Sioux City, was three times nominated for its Mayor and once elected. In 1920 he was Chairman of the Commission in Charge of Affairs in the Far East of the American Red Cross. He now lives in West Virginia. Until the appearance of Vandemark's Folly (widely praised as a fine American historical novel) in 1921, he was chiefly known in the literary field as the author of such thrillers as Virginia of the Air Lanes and Alladin & Co.

*THE HAWKEYE -- Herbert Quick -- Bolls-Werrill ($2.00).