Meredith Nicholson: A Writing Life by Ralph D. Gray (review)

Book Reviews 145 judges) who served the court. From the outset, Geib and Kite identify moral reform as a common thread throughout the court's history, and they work to illustrate its various manifestations from Prohibition to the current deluge of drug-related cases before the federal courts. I wish the authors had maintained this unity and balance through the final chapter. Acknowledging that it is difficult to write about sitting judges, this section reads more like a checklist of topics to be covered before the end of the book. Complicated legal terms that are unfamiliar to the average reader and technical details about particular cases dominate the work's last sixty pages. Despite this shortcoming, Federal Justice in Indiana is an excellent resource that will appeal to a wide variety of readers. The information regarding the types of cases heard by the court, the shifts in the operation of the court, and changes in the legal profession will be of value to anyone interested in regional or legal history?not just Indiana or the federal courts in particular. Elizabeth R. Osborn Indiana Supreme Court Indianapolis, Indiana Ralph D. Gray. Meredith Nicholson: A Writing Ufe. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2007. Pp. 281. Bibliography. Illustrations. Notes. Cloth, $19.95. At the turn of the twentieth century, Meredith Nicholson was a favorite literary son of Indiana at a time when Indiana writers commanded the nation's attention. Along with such celebrated Hoosier authors as Booth Tarkington, James Whitcomb Riley, and George Ade, Nicholson published a series of works that mosdy used his native state as the backdrop. His fame rested on his writing in popular genres such as mysteries and adventure stories, although he also produced "problem" novels, works on Indiana history, and political essays. Nicholson had a trio of bestsellers in the early twentieth century, including his most famous work, House of a Thousand Candles. This Midwest gothic mystery was published in 1905. However, unlike other Indiana writers of the time, Nicholson has generally been ignored by academics who study American literature. This is an oversight that Ralph D. Gray is determined to rectify. 146 Michigan Historical Review This biography follows the familiar line from Dragnet "Just the facts, Ma'am." Gray diligendy sought out materials in archives scattered across the eastern United States, and he has forged them into a tight narrative of his subject's life?perhaps excessively so. Nicholson's reputation is too thin to draw readers in on its own merits. This biography might have benefited from a larger sense of purpose than Gray gives it. There is plenty of material for a psychological exploration of the relationship between author and creative motivation (for example, Nicholson's father's estrangement from the family and his eventual suicide) or for a cultural history of Indiana's relationship to the broader intellectual trends of the time. But Gray largely eschews analysis, providing instead a chronicle of the author's life, an overview of many of his books, and literary judgments from contemporary reviewers and Nicholson's Hoosier correspondents. Gray's biography will be most useful to literary scholars interested in the evolution of Indiana culture during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. The first two-thirds of A Writing Life make this theme admirably clear, and in these pages readers learn about Nicholson's relationship to his fellow Indiana writers and his use of Indiana as a setting for his stories and histories. This work may also prove useful to historians of American foreign affairs who are interested in Franklin Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy as Gray follows Nicholson through a series of ill-fated backwater ambassadorial posts in Paraguay, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Nicholson stopped writing fiction by the late 1920s, suffered massive losses during the Great Depression, and felt that his life's energy was spent. It is here that Gray's writing falters, becoming somewhat repetitive and too focused on minor details. The reader would benefit from an index, which the book lacks. Reynolds J. Scott-Childress, History Department State University of New York, New Paltz Patrick J. Jung. The Black Hawk War of 1832. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Pp. 288. Bibliography. Illustrations...