Nightshade: The Confessions of a Reasoning Animal

E.P. Dutton [Published 1924]. Hard cover, 288 pp. [Excerpts from the book] “Yesterday I was at Terry’s, drinking peach brandy with an interesting prostitute : to-day I have been playing bridge with that most respectable institution, the Beauville Bridge Club. I glory conceitedly in the facile charm which enables me to shine adequately in both circles. I have a taste for the so-called lowest, as well as for the so-called best company, and I like one about as well as the other. … And as for those darlings, the aristocrats, they are afraid of nothing but of being bored. Oh, of losing their figures perhaps. … There are certain seemingly irrelevant conventions which must be observed if one is to enjoy what comes in life, just as there are in a game of bridge, or in pawning something. One of the chief of these is not to look forward or anticipate. Whatever is prepared for is usually a let-down. … The reason I enjoyed meeting "Mrs. Eyfilos” at Terry’s was because the incident was so entirely unexpected, and so, refreshing. She was like a swig of boot-leg whiskey furtively offered to a dry citizen on the way to a long sermon on a Sunday morning.“ [Excerpt from review by The Davenport Democrat and Leader from Davenport, Iowa, April 13, 1924 Page 30] [The author] finds compensation for the boredom of hamlet life in hectic physical contact with these interesting young girls Yet he commits no crimes in a statutory sense. The merit of "Nightshade" is in the faithful catalog of the author's reactions, mental and physical, to association with young girls. The [fact that the man's] nature is grossly sensuous and his will power negligible is lost sight of in the charm and simplicity of the unpretentious style in which he writes... Both Tarkington's stories of youth are written without reference to sex. The libraries will probably not add this 'book to their shelves, but its value nevertheless transcends that of the majority of the current best sellers.