Just Read: Psmith, Journalist by P.G. Wodehouse

This is the first book that I've ever read completely electronically -- and I say this as a guy who's had a Palm (three of them, in fact) for the past four years, and e-books on them the whole time. It took Wodehouse to finally get me to finish something that way; it's not that it's all that inconvenient, or difficult; it's just that, given any choice, I'd rather read words on paper than on a tiny screen. But I read chunks of this when I didn't have a choice -- while waiting for the 4th of July fireworks, or at kids' events, or whatnot -- and I got through it in about three months of on-and-off reading.

This is a very early, and transitional Wodehouse book; it was originally published in 1915 (between Psmith in the City and Leave It To Psmith), and is one of his early attempts to write about a different setting. In this case, that's the lawless world of gangland New York City, and Psmith's blithe superiority doesn't always mesh well with on-page gunplay and pummelings. Wodehouse wrote many gangsters after this point, but he mostly brought them into the situations he knew and could write about well, rather than having his characters head into their world.

The setup in Psmith, Journalist is that Mike (remember Mike? hardly anybody does, but he was supposed to be the hero of the series until Psmith sauntered in) and Psmith are in New York on the summer break from Cambridge; Mike to play cricket and Psmith to...well, to be Psmith, basically. In some way I don't remember, they meet the sub-editor of a juvenile daily paper, who is minding the store while the editor is on an extended vacation, and Psmith convinces the young sub-editor to change Cozy Moments into a muck-raking, pugilist-supporting rag focused on the horrible conditions in NYC tenements. (And the serious subject matter doesn't work well with Wodehousian lightness; this novel mostly trivializes the serious issues instead of getting any boost in purpose from them.)

Anyway, the owner of the tenements in question is secret, and wants to stay that way. He's a corrupt politician with gangsters on his side, but Psmith and friends also have some gangsters (and an up-and-coming boxer) on their side. There are more fights and chases than expected in a Wodehouse novel, but good, of course, eventually prevails.

Psmith sails back to England, where he belongs. And Wodehouse mostly avoided setting novels in the USA (especially the gritty side of it) after that point.