Jake Home

RUTH MCKENNEY has written well and faithfully of Jake Home, the prodigious, redheaded kid from “Lungskill, Pennsylvania, one of the lost places of this earth.” Jake is Benjamin Franklin, John Bunyan, and John L. Lewis rolled into one. He moves easily up the ladder of promotion — and jumps off to fight brilliantly for lost causes like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, The book has everything — sympathy for the underdog, occasional flashes of humor, an imposing gallery of people of every stripe and color, not forgetting the socialite pinks and the remnant of the lost generation. Ten years ago this book would have rocked readers back on their heels. But now the struggles of labor for its rights can of necessity cause only a ripple in the millrace of contemporary history. And it is too bad, for this is an honest novel of imposing proportions.