JOHN HENRY —Roark Bradford —Harper ($2.50).
After Author Roark Bradford gained fame with his negroid Bible stories, Ol' Man Adam an' Ilis Chillun (on which Playwright Marc Connelly based his Pulitzer Prize play, The Green Pastures), he failed to add to it with This Side of Jordan, an unpleasantly realistic, unpleasantly tragic novel of Negro life. Now he is back again on the side of the angels with a rambling, episodic legend of the big black buck John Henry, who is to the Cotton Belt what Paul Bunyan is to the North Woods.
John Henry came from the Black River Country, "whar all de good rousterbouts comes I'm, an' de sun don't never shine.'' His birth was Gargantuan: he weighed 44 pounds, and as soon as he opened his mouth he called for lashings of victuals. He talked brash and he acted uppety, but he got things done. He could lift 500 pounds of cotton at one lick and with one smack sink a nine-inch spike in a whiteoak tie. With women, too, his ways were winning, till he encountered his fatal Julie Anne. Her chronic faithlessness gave John Henry bad attacks of the all-overs, the down-yonders, even made him ponder the meaning of existence.
Once he took his troubles to an old witch woman. She gave him good advice: "You got to weary yo' life along, 'cause dat's de way hit turns out. You work and yo' back gits tired; you lay round hyar in de sun and shade and yo' soul gits twice as weary. Take a job er work, and you wear cawns in yo' hands. Th'ow yo' shoes under some woman's bed, and cawns come on yo' weary soul. Quit yo' work, and you gits de all-overs. quit yo' woman, and you gits de down-yonders. Hit's all one and de same, John Henry. So git yo' hat and keep amovin', son, 'cause hit ain't no rest for de weary."
The Author. Roark Bradford, born on a plantation near the Mississippi River, grew up with Negroes, had one for nurse, many for playmates, went to their homes, churches, picnics, funerals. He received a degree from the University of California in 1917; when the War broke out he went soldiering, stayed in the Army till 1920. Then he worked on newspapers in Atlanta, New Orleans. Four years ago he quit work to write. His second published story, Child of God, won the O. Henry Memorial Award for 1927.