Word: stong
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Stranger's Return (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Author Phil Stong's novels have supplied the cinema with something it has needed for a long time-true-to-life stories about U. S. farmers. Fox made his first published book State Fair into one of the best pictures of last winter. The Stranger's Return, which was completed in Hollywood by the time the book was published (TIME, July 10), is an even more appealing pastoral, distinguished by Author Stong's incisive characterizations and by King Vidor's direction which is so authoritative that Lionel Barrymore acts...
What makes these happenings arresting are those sharp if superficial perceptions of personality which are the salt of Author Stong's books. Before Grandpa Storr speaks a word you find out exactly what sort of person he is by the way he picks up a dish of cold breakfast cereal, carries it out into the yard, dumps it contemptuously into the henyard. Louise falls in love with Guy at a village dance while Simon the hired man (Stuart Erwin) is getting drunk on corn whiskey. For a genre incident-of the kind which have made Stong contributions unique...
STRANGER'S RETURN-Phil Stong-Harcourt, Brace ($2). Only Iowans can properly judge how truly Author Stong's 14th novel* mirrors Iowa life, but any hayseed can tell that Author Stong has seen some strongly improbable cinemas. Author Stong, however, has plentifully seasoned this fare with generous helpings of sardonic Iowa humor. Grandpa Storr, a cross between Falstaff and King Lear, talked like Mark Twain in unexpurgated mood. His language and actions were equally offensive to his household, consisting of: his nephew's wife (wicked), his stepdaughter (foolish), her husband (weak). They sat around like jackals waiting...
...Maugham-Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). 1919 - John Dos Passos - Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). OBSCURE DESTINIES-Willa Gather- Knopf ($2). THE PAST RECAPTURED-Marcel Proust -Boni ($2.50). PETER ASHLEY-DuBose Heyward- Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50). THE SHELTERED LIFE-Ellen Glasgow -Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). SONS - Pearl S. Ruck -John Day ($2.50). STATE FAIR - Phil Stong - Century ($2.50). THE STORE-T. S. Stribling-Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). WANTON MALLY-Booth Tarkington- Doubleday, Doran ($2). YOUNG WOMAN OF 1914-Arnold Zweig -Viking...
Sirs: Sharp, exact detail is a TIME quality which readers respect. For TIME to say that Phil Stong's State Fair is "rich in sharp, exact detail" is to trespass on this TIME quality which to the devoted newsmagazine reader is sacred ground. TIME'S review of State Fair was reasonable, but to refer to the book as a standard of accuracy in details of Iowa rural life (p. 33, Sept. 5 issue) is deserving of challenge. Three times Author Stong stubs his toes on pebbles of detail any Iowa 4-H pig club member knows all about...