Best 1921 Adventures (2)

By: Joshua Glenn
February 7, 2016

One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1921 adventure novels. Happy 95th anniversary!

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Erik_Dorn_1

Ben Hecht’s comical adventure Erik Dorn.

Before he became the Hollywood screenwriter famous for Scarface, The Front Page, Some Like it Hot, and His Girl Friday, Hecht wrote a novel in which a cynical, burned-out Chicago journalist abandons his wife (and his mistress, too — the novel’s sexual explicitness made it a sensation, at the time) for the excitement of revolutionary Europe. In post-WWI Berlin, Dorn seeks to become a participant rather than an observer in life. However, Erik Dorn is a sardonic inversion of a self-liberation adventure; nothing works out, for our would-be hero. Upon returning home, Dorn finds his wife re-married… and he no longer cares for his mistress. He is even more hollowed-out than before he left.

Fun fact: The novel is semi-autobiographical. After World War I, Hecht was sent to cover Berlin for the Chicago Daily News.

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Let me know if I’ve missed any 1921 adventures that you particularly admire.