HUNGRY MEN

Thomas Minehan's Boy and Girl Trampe in America (Farrar) had a surprisingly good general sale, indicating a wide interest in the subject. Now comes Hungry Men, authentic material (or so it reads) worked into fiction form, in the story of Acel Stecker, bum by force of circumstances. This is one of the two winning novels in Story Magazine -- Doubleday, Doran Prize Contest -- and with its co-winner, co-selection of the Literary Guild for May...""Something to eat and a place to flop"" -- the two crying needs of hungry, homeless men -- and the story opens at a mission meeting, endured for the sake of the lodging and meal, such as they are, at its close. Seafarers' Home, lodging houses, jungles, park benches, a job now and then, fellow bums, the inevitable seeping in of communism and radicalism -- a crowded canvas, painted in bold strokes, vigorous, pungent, honest. Not a book for the squeamish -- but a book that should have wide appeal to those who can take it.