Skyline: A Reporter's Reminiscence of the 1920s

by Gene Fowler

Here is the last of the books of "the last of the troubadours," as Lucius Beebe called Gene Fowler, completed just before his death in the summer of 1960.

Timberline, written in 1933, told of his Denver Post days and is a peerless account of the adventures of its most gifted reporter. A Solo in Tom-Toms, in 1946, took Gene further along his journalistic safari (with many a side excursion). Now Skyline comes to the greatest moments, the grand climax, the New York newspaper days of the 1920s, the time and the town in all their gusto and raw color.

As always with Gene Fowler his main story is built up of many stories of the people whom he knew, ranging from mountebanks, impostors, quacks, and bums to the "greats" that ornamented his days. Thus we meet in Skyline Babe Ruth, Grantland Rice, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Arthur Brisbane, Will Irwin, "Tad," William Randolph Hearst, Jack Dempsey, Herbert Bayard Swope, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Ford, and many another - as well as some assorted kidnappers, panhandlers, defrocked doctors, and numerous colorful reporters of his acquaintance.

Occupying a large part of the stage is the fabulous Damon Runyon, whom Fowler met in Eldorado Springs, Colorado, in 1905. He knew him longer and better than did any writing man now alive, and the book contains much new material on Runyon, and many hitherto untold anecdotes and stories of him in his role as Broadway's most fabulous citizen and as one of the leading wits of Park Row.

There will never be another Gene Fowler - and there will never be another book quite like this one, with its mixture of tenderness and humor and the rare qualities that make the true storyteller. The last chapter was written on the eve of his seventieth birthday; with a bit added subsequently that hints his knowledge of his rapidly nearing end. But, as Gene says, "Whenever there is a greeting there must also be a farewell." And with Skyline we say farewell to one of the best-loved authors of our time.

Genres: Journalism, Nonfiction

314 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Gene Fowler (born Eugene Devlan) was an American journalist, author, and dramatist, known for his racy, readable content and for the speed of his writing. After a year at the University of Colorado, he took a job with The Denver Post. His assignments included an interview with the frontiersman and Wild West Show promoter Buffalo Bill Cody. He established his trademark impertinence by questioning Cody about his many love affairs.

Fowler left Denver for Chicago, then moved to New York where Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, New York Evening Journal and as managing editor of the New York American and The Morning Telegraph. His work included more than a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s.

Reviews

[Pollypollack · Rating 3 out of 5]

i loved Gene Fowler's bio of John Barrymore so I bought this as well as his biography. This one is a bit murky with details of just about everyone he met in New York, but was written in his last year of life and has some poignant insights as he looks over his life.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gene Fowler waxes at poetic length about times and events gone by. Recommended in particular for fans of Damon Runyon, who receives the lion's share of the ink in this overly told memoir.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it because it's the next chunk of Fowler's autobiography, after "Timberline," which covers his time at the Denver Post. He supposedly had trouble writing this, and it shows - it really covers only the first two or three years he spent working for Hearst in NYC, so it barely enters the 1920s at all. It also seems like half of it is anecdotes about Damon Runyon, which is a fine thing if you're a Runyon obsessive (as opposed to a Fowler obsessive). A few good stories about life at the Daily Mirror offer a vague idea of what might have been.

[Alana Cash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books is a great read if you love New York. He writes about places that are gone now as well as places that are still there. It's fun to know where boxing champions lived, bars that were popular, etc. Well written and easy to read.