HE SWUNG AND HE MISSED

by Eugene O'Brien ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 1937

Watch this one. It is tough and hard boiled and a severe and bitter censure of the men and policies of the U.S. Navy. For those who can take it, it's a swell job. But they've got to be tough skinned. Toby Brent, stalwart, clean cut, seventeen-year old farmer boy joins the Navy as a rung towards Annapolis. Then follows his seasoning:- a rigorous shade-down training period, disillusion in the discovery that his best friend is a homo, gets transfer from Hampton Roads engineering course to a ship, given the dirty jobs by officers seeking to break his spirit, labelled syphillitic due to a mix-up and poisoned by unnecessary serum, turned into a tough, unprincipled gob, with a hatred for his officers, and his sole ambition, accumulation of enough money to begin again. The story ends on a note of despair -- no funds, no chance for employment. As a story, it is not wholly convincing; one feels that the autobiographical slant is tinged with too much bias, too little perspective. But it's grand reading.

Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1937

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Reynal & Hitchcock

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1937

Categories: FICTION