An Immigrant's Story

THIS biography, almost 400 pages long, is amazingly interesting, amazingly true and amazingly well-written. Its central theme, more substantial in its actual story than the plots of many of our popular novels, is drawn from the experiences of a young English-Scandinavian immigrant in Canada and the United States.

A conceited, cultured, intelligent member of the best Continental society is forced by sudden poverty to start his life over again in a tremendously different environment. He accepts his new position, or rather the lack of it, in an adventurous spirit, despite the disillusionments and disappointments lying in his path. The large body of the book is taken up with the transition in the immigrant's whole attitude, his entire philosophy, from that of an over-educated gentlemen of leisure into a semi-radical but far more human character.

It is an absorbing tale that takes Mr. Grove from his first job as a waiter's assistant in a cheap restaurant through the cities, factories, and harvest fields of a large section of America. His bitterness in his futile early search for Abraham Lincoln and his contempt for the type of American he does find give way finally to a rational appreciation and clear vision of America.

This is no story of dollar-success and dollar-education in the United States, but an intellectual and psychological change in a man's point of view. The transformation is wrought by experience and contacts in a new world.

Mr. Grove never becomes sentimental--his early life as a bored cynic among the petty literati of European salons precludes sentimentality. His excellent and expensive academic education gives him a background and a sense of proportion and combines with his very real talent as a writer to give us a unique document.