PARTISAN REVIEW
I think it is this quality in his solution-as much as his manifest
hatred for Marxism-that makes one uneasy about lVIacLeish. There are
obvious objections to calling such poetry Fascist; even the validity of such
a classification may be in doubt. Certainly there are many bourgeois
writers whose intellectual positions are much stronger bulwarks of reac–
tion. That is because they have had will enough to give some meaning
to their experience, either in terms of the bourgeois past, or of socially
isolated individualism. In Germany and Italy many of them, after indirect–
ly helping Fascism to seize power, have had too much intellectual lI1tegrity
to come to terms with it. But MacLeish seems to lack the will to
resolve his experience. For his non-poetic experience he demanded a pro–
gram from the young mcn of Wall Street. In his verse there have been
complementary emotional demands. And reading the poems in this volume
one can imagine how the terror, the authority, the ritual, the
patriotism~
sub rational and impulsive-that he has so constantly sought outside him–
self, couid come at last with the marching feet of the storm troO!)S.
OBED BROOKS
THE DISINHERITED,
by Jack Conroy. Covici-Friede, $2.00.
In
Th e Dirinherited
Jack Conroy has written a fine book, a very
important addition to the growing body of American proletarian literature.
There is no question why it is so good a book: it grows out of Conroy's
own experience as a worker. He has not only observed but has also
participated in proletarian life, and he has a remarkable gift for portray–
ing that Ii fe to the reader who is remote from it. Certain episodes in the
book are particularly effective: th e account of the life and death of the
narrator's father at the Monkey Nest coal mines, the railroad strike, the
struggles of Bun Grady, the agony of the unemployed, and the stopping
of the eviction. In such episodes Conroy makes us realize, as few authors
have succeeded in doing, what America actually means to the average
workingman. Here are characters such as we have rarely found in Amer–
ican literature, though we hope to see their like more and more frequent–
ly in the future.
One speaks of particular episodes in
Th e Disinherited
because it is in
terms of episodes th at one thinks of the book. Indeed, anyone who has
followed Conroy's work must realize that several sections of the book
were originally written as separate stories or sketchrs. He has done his
best to weld these stories into a unified narrative, but he has not been
entirely successful. Thc structure of the novel is as simple as possible.
The story is told by the central character, Larry Donovan, who is to some
extent to be identified with the author. Larry desc ribes a series of ex-
56
