Hard Babies

NAKED on ROLLER SKATES*Maxwell Bodenheim--Liveright ($2).*

Terry Barberlit, onetime hobo, circus-pegger, doughboy, sailor, anarchist, con man, all-time sensationalist and wanderer of the world, was 56 and looked older until you got in a fight with him. Terry was resting from his labors by peddling snake oil medicine in country villages when he ran into Ruth, a young garage-owning widow with a viperish tongue. She liked him more than he liked her. She asked him over for a drink. When he left town next day she went with him. Terry had agreed to look after her for a year, because she wanted to try everything at least once. '"Everything" was apparently contained in Manhattan and Harlem. Terry and Ruth took a Manhattan apartment, bought a Coffee Pot restaurant, worked in the daytime, in the evening plunged into dive after dive. Ruth kept getting Terry into trouble because she would insist on letting men kiss her or going places she had no business to go. But Terry invariably emerged triumphant from the fracas, dragging her with him. Eventually the shoddy wild life palled. Ruth and Terry discovered they loved each other, sold the Coffee Pot and took a train to Chicago.

The Author. Maxwell Bodenheim, 35, blond, squarish, medium-sized, is Jewish but looks Teutonic. He is married and lives on Long Island, but keeps his domicile a secret. As a writer Bodenheim is of the same school as unheavenly literary twin Ben Hecht, but nearer the foot of the class. His poetry is on a par with his prose. Other books: Replenishing Jessica, Ninth Avenue, Georgie May.

*New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.

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