Books: The Late Mr. Zigler

"THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL—"—Clyde Brion Davis—Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

A solemn sap, scrawny, cartoon-faced Homer Zigler was a 23-year-old, $1-a-week cub reporter on a Buffalo newspaper when he decided to become a novelist. But first, said Homer, "to the purpose of preparing myself for that career," he would keep a journal. "The Great American Novel—" is the journal—a satire that starts off by tagging after Ring Lardner, turns off on an oily road marked Irony-&-Pity, skids into caricature, and comes to a happy halt as the June choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club—as did Author Davis' first novel, The Anointed, a bare ten...