James Norman Hall

Abandoned in no-man's-land, some wounded men spent days crawling to safety.

JAMES NORMAN HALL., who died in Tahiti on July 6, 1951, came close to achieving his heart’s desire. Born in Iowa and brought up in circumstances so modest that he had to work his wav through high school and college, he early acquired a wanderlust and the irrepressible urge to write. Though his poems and essays were rejected with grim monotony, he kept plugging away. Four years of social work in Boston brought him close to Thoreau and the Concord worthies, but it was his service in the First World War, first as a machine gunner in the British Army, then as an Ace in the Lafayette Flying Corps. that at last gave him the source material for the best of his early poems and his first two books, Kitchener’s Mob and High Adventure. The most audacious flyer in Rickenbacker’s squadron, Hall was shot down over the German lines; on his return from prison camp, he met in Paris the man who was to play the most decisive part in his literary life. Charles Nordhoff.

This is the third installment of an autobiography which will mean much to Atlantic readers. JAMESS NORMAN HALLwas lowa born and bred, and the hills and the Skunk River close to the little town of Colfax were to him what Hannibal and the Mississippi a were to Sam Clemens. Hall worked as a salesman in a dry-goods store while still in high school. He got his degree at Grinnell by dint of waiting on table, peeling potatoes, cutting grass and shoveling snow. Always he had wanted to write, and though his poems and essays were rejected with grim monotony, he kept plugging away. His first job as a social worker took him to Boston, where he spent his days trying to salvage broken lives in the bleakest of slums and his nights pounding his typewriter in an attic room overlooking Louisburg Square. Then in 1914 he decided to invest his tiny savings in a trip to England. Our serial, which is a four-part abridgment of the book, resumes at that point.

This is the second installment of one of the most endearing American autobiographies the Atlantic has ever published. My Island Home recounts the aspirations and adventures of an Iowa boy who early in this century worked his way through school and college and whose dream it was to find an island solitude where one day he would write. It was not until his return from a German prison camp in 1919 that JAMES NORMAN HALL made friends with Charles Nordhoff, and out of their friendship which ripened in Paris came a literary partnership unique in American letters. The Atlantic’s four-part abridgment comprises about one third of this memoir.

This is the beginning of our of the most endearing American autobiographies the Atlantic has ever published. My Island Home recounts the aspirations and adventures of an lowa boy who early in this century worked his way through school and college and whose dream it was to find an island solitude where one day he would write. It was not until his return from a German prison camp in 1919 that JAMES NORMAN HALL, made friends with Charles Nordhoff, and out of their friendship which ripened in Paris came a literary partnership unique in American letters. The Atlantic will publish a four-part abridgment of this memoir.

For thirty years James Norman Hall has made his home in the South Seas. Over the years his imagination has continually been challenged by the question of hou the Polynesians ever came to these peaceful but remote islands. From his knowledge of the natives and their legends, he has recreated the epic story of the Tongon Clan, who were lovers of peace and who had gone to sea in their great outrigger canoes in search of the Far Lands promised them by Tané, the god they worshiped. After storm and starvation a remnant of the clan was driven ashore on Kurapo, an island peopled by the Koros, a clan who worshiped war and who would hare massacred the survivors were it not for the intervention of their high chief, Vaitangi, who gave the enfeebled strangers sanctuary on the eastern side of the island.

For thirty years James Norman Hall has made his home in the South Seas. Over the years his imagination has continually been challenged by the question of hour the Polynesians ever came to these peaceful but remote islands. From his knowledge of the natives and their legends, he has recreated the epic story of the Tongan Clan, who mere lovers of peace and mho had gone to sea in their great outrigger canoes in search of the Far Lands promised them by Tane, the god they worshiped. After storm and starvation a remnant of the clan mas driven ashore on Kurapo, an island peopled by the Koros, a clan who worshiped war and who mould have massacred the survivors mere it not for the intervention of their high chief, Vaitangi, who gave the enfeebled strangers sanctuary on the eastern side of the island.

JAMES NORMAN HALL has made his home in the South Seas since 1920. Together with his dearest friend, Charles Nordhoff, both veterans of the Lafayette Escadrille, he migrated to Tahiti in search of a quiet place to write, and there their literary partnership took root and flourished. As he learned the language and came to know the natives, Hall’s imagination was challenged by these questions: Where did the Polynesians come from? How, in the dawn of history, had they ever traversed the enormous spaces of the Pacific to find these remote and peaceful atolls? From the legends and folklore and from his thirty years’ experience in Papeete, Hall has re-created this great adventure in a novel, the main episodes of which are to be serialized in the Atlantic.

Robert Dean Frisbie went to Tahiti in 1920, a young veteran of the First World War drawing a veteran’s disability pension because of his weak lungs. It was his intent to submerge himself in the slow, delightful current of the island life, just as it was his aspiration to write books of escape. But he was often at odds with himself and sometimes in difficulties with the white authorities. It was Frisbie’s good fortune to become fast friends with JAMES NORMAN HALL, and the friendship served him as a beacon in the dark days after the death of his native wife, Nga, when Frisbie found himself alone with the care of their children. A Fund is now being raised for the four Frisbie children, and to it Mr. Hall has contributed the royalties he received for this three-part serial. The Atlantic will be glad to forward the contributions of others who are in sympathy.