THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS (497 pp.) —Russell Janney—Prentice-Hall ($3).
The publishers call this novel "the publishing find of 1946 . . . the Abie's Irish Rose of publishing." They have elaborate promotion stunts all figured out: they plan to send the author on a "whirlwind" lecture tour of 60 U.S. cities, to talk on religious tolerance under the auspices of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. They have even worked out advertising tie-ups with tobacco companies—because the book speaks favorably of smoking. They have printed 125,000 copies of the book, which they claim is the largest pre-publication printing of a first novel in publishing history.
Prentice-Hall have good reason to be half out of their minds. As a novel, The Miracle of the Bells is one of the worst ever published; as a business proposition it has cornered the schmaltz market and provides a role for every star in Hollywood.
Religion for Sale. The Miracle of the Bells has also a special importance. It fervently exploits every last one of the most treasured American principles—the brotherhood of races and creeds, human decency, class democracy (it has enough "little men" to man a Liberty ship). Above all, it has a religious theme—and in recent years a slew of novels, good & bad (including The Robe, The Song of Bernadette, The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith) have proved to publishers that in an unhappy world religion, no matter how vulgarized, has a market value second only to sex. In The Miracle, religious faith is trumpeted with a shamelessness that would make an atheist blush.
Hero of The Miracle is two-fisted Broadway Pressagent Bill Dunnigan. Bill always wore white spats, but "he believed that there was in the human heart a greater and deeper emotion than the thing commonly called love." Its name: "Palship." One day, goodhearted Bill discovered a tuberculous Polish girl in a burlesque house, got her the leading role in a movie. She played it like the great actress she had always pined to be—and then collapsed. "Bill," she gasped, "have the bells [of my home town] rung for pop—and me. . . . [And] some little girls with white paper wings ... to stand by my coffin." Then she passed away—to the heavenly studio of "the Great Producer."
Bishops & Orchids. By the time loyal Bill Dunnigan was through giving the little girl a big funeral, her drab birthplace, Coaltown, Pa., was jammed with bishops, Hollywood producers, newspapermen, sobbing atheists, tender rabbis. Orchids poured in from the greenhouses of the rich; the local miner's union donated a handmade altar. Even St. Michael ("the saint who took on Kid Lucifer and put him down and out for the full count") came across with a couple of helpful miracles, and the corpse's ghost made several personal appearances, clad in "a faded blue dress."