Diversey

Marry Javlyn, a promising young journalist from Clay City, Iowa, is enticed to Chicago by the opportunities for professional advancement that the city has to offer. Marry adjusts quickly to his new environment, establishing a liaison with Jo Ruska from across the hall; cultivating a friendship with Steve Gold, a local gangster; and playing politics to get a job in City Hall. Literally speaking, Diversey is the story of one man and the influences that the city has on his character. In a broader sense, it is the story of an entire segment of Chicago society--the segment which inhabits the streets, the Loop, the cabarets, the boardinghouses, City Hall, the elevated trains, and the newsrooms of that teeming metropolis. Kantor's first novel, Diversey has suffered the criticism commonly applied to the works of meritorious young novelists--too long, too ambitious, too tightly knit--but all critics agree that it is a well wrought story and a splendid impression of 1920s Chicago.