Hawk on the Blue and Others

August Derleth's earliest mainstream stories, written in the 1930s, are character sketches of figures young and old, loosely based on actual individuals he met in his hometown of Sauk City, Wisconsin. Several tales feature an undercurrent of domestic conflict, while others speak poignantly of the beauties of the rural landscape. Others are experiments in narration, including two that consist entirely of a sequence of telegrams. This volume concludes with a substantial novella, "Linda Frayne," written in 1940 but unpublished in Derleth's lifetime. It focuses on a love triangle, whereby the title character falls in love with Ed Sanders, but he ends up marrying another woman. That marriage fails, and Ed and Linda run away together to live as husband and wife in Chicago. There is a pervasive atmosphere of melancholy in "Linda Frayne," which covers decades in the lives of its central characters. It displays Derleth's skill at character portrayal and the intersection of human emotions with social and political turmoil.