Books: Banana-Ripe

HOME TO HARLEM—Claude McKay—Harpers ($2.50). Jake, a Negro, home from the World War, picks up a warm brown girl in a Harlem cabaret, gives her his last $50, spends the night with her. Next morning, after leaving her, he discovers in his pocket the $50 with a scrawl attached: "Just a little gift from a baby girl to a honey boy." But Jake had lost her address. So he finds new women, old drinks; becomes a longshoreman, a third cook on a Pullman, a quiet enjoyer of metropolitan fleshpots. In the end—Negroes, too, like it happy—Jake wanders into the arms...