FURTHER SHORT STORIES TOEN BOYHOOD DREAMS COME TRUE Further Short Stories BY JAMES T. FARRELL THE SUN DIAL PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y. TO ESTHER COWLES ef . . . the spirit of the time, growing slowly and quietly ripe for the new form it is to assume, disintegrates one fragment after another of the structure of its previous world. That it is tottering to its fall is indicated only by symptoms here and there, frivolity and again ennui, which are spreading in the established order of things, the undefined foreboding of some thing unknown all these betoken that there is something else approaching HEGEL The Phenomenology of Mind Contents The Power of Literature 3 Willie Collins 12 Two Brothers 3 1 Lib 92 When Boyhood Dreams Come True 97 Tournament Star iz6 Fritz 140 Paris Scene 1931 154 A Summer Morning in Dublin in 193 8 164 John Hitchcock 174 The Virginians Are Coming 187 The Mowbray Family In collaboration with Hortense farrell 211 The Power of Literature SAMUEL LORDS FIRST NOVEL was a vivid, powerful, and pre cisely detailed account of an alcoholic and of his eventual and complete regeneration. It described the dreams, the terrors, the agonies, the follies, the insatiable cravings for drink, and the sad and pathetic sordidness which is so characteristic a feature in the life of a dipsomaniac. His book became an immediate best seller it was discussed widely in the press and on the radio and full-page advertisements were taken by the publishers in the weekly and daily book pages. These advertisements con tained quotations from some literary ex-drunks who spoke of the vividness, the truth, the reality, the power of the novel. One of them stated that the novel almost gave him delirium tremens.Another declared that, when he put it down, after staying up all night reading it, he had been left with such a vivid impression that he felt as if he had a hangover, and that he had gone about for two days feeling the terrors of shame and guilt that one feels when one does have a real hangover. The book sold by the thousands and mounted up and up to the top of the best-seller lists hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were bought from one end of America to another. It was wartime, and the book market was booming The publishers had sold so many books that they were in the surtax brackets. They decided to spend some money, which was deductible from taxes, on a big party for Samuel Lord. It was to be the biggest literary party in years, and several members of the firm, as well as the employees, devoted much 3 WHEN BOYHOOD DREAMS COME TRUE time to the arrangements. The planning of the party required editorial conferences, discussions, and consultations over a period of several weeks. Everything was planned with the greatest care. Four rooms in one of the swankiest hotels in New York were hired. Two bars were to be arranged, one of them to serve only the best champagne, and the other to serve all kinds of other alcoholic drinks. The idea of serving the guests free champagne was particularly attractive to the pub lishers. There was much discussion and much anticipation of this. It had never been done in the book business, and to do this, particularly when it was so difficult to get champagne, was a real feather in their caps. And during these many discussions about the serving of drinks, the arrangement of the bars, the purchase of the liquor, no one involved paused to think of thetheme of the book. Several hundred invitations were sent out to other pub lishers, to critics, writers, actors and actresses, people in the re tail book trade, agents, literary politicians, radio broadcasters, neer-do-wells, editors, critics, reviewers, gossip columnists, and sundry others. The New York literary world had not had a party such as this was to be since the days of the boom, back in the dizzy twenties. The day of the party arrived. All day, Sam Lord was excited and nervous. He had dreamed of writing for years, and now he was a famous writer...