Derelict Alley

New York: The Macaulay Company. Fair. (c.1933). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [shelfworn book, with a rather prominent dampstain affecting the lower 3.5 inches of the spine and bleeding onto both the front and rear covers; about an inch of the top edge of the front board is exposed]. "Her mother had followed the oldest profession and she grew into it too. There was no other profession for her to hope for. But there was a fine streak in Mona and it puzzled Carlos, proprietor of the Alley Cat, a water front joint. It allured Captain Jim Bennett who wanted her to marry and sail off with him. But she didn't marry because she didn't (truncated) know love. She learned about it when blind David Martin, playing his fiddle, stumbled into the alley -- and into her heart." One contemporary reviewer called it "essentially pulp-paper material," but also allowed as how the author "has an undeniable flair for appreciation of character values which lifts his story definitely into a sphere of interest which may well intrigue serious attention and discriminating appreciation." (That writer was getting paid by the word, for sure!) Another critic thought that "the romantic interest cannot make up for the coarseness, vulgarity and murkiness which makes the novel true to life," and yet another found it "a superb story, splendidly told." In any event, it's extremely uncommon, with OCLC recording just a single copy! (At Harvard, of all places, whose cataloging notes "dust jacket preserved"; good for them!) The author had a productive but utterly undistinguished B-movie screenwriting career from the late 1930s until his death in 1955. . (Inventory #: 29279)