The Crucible

Jean Fanshaw, who insists on being called Jack, is committed to a girls' reformatory, studies every escape that has ever been tried there, and then has to build a second life outside with her record following her. Luther wrote steadily for the American magazines in the years when the domestic novel was being asked harder questions than before, and he gives the institution and the girl equal attention. Fifty-five plates by painters including John Sloan and George Bellows carry the city streets, rooftops and factories of Jack's hard second life in a gallery of American urban realism.