Sixteen more lost stories by Ben Hecht from the Snickersnee Press, this compilation about Chicago's pioneering Modernist artists, their art and the pioneering skyscrapers punctuating the cityscape. Audiences include 1. Art and cultural historians of early Modernism in Chicago; 2. Short story lovers interested in literary journalism of Ben Hecht at his before-30 Chicago brightest. 3. Chicago history. The 1921-1922 short works reveal Hecht's passion for avant-garde art including German DaDa, show off his unbridled wordsmithery, philosophizing and humor in his salad days before he became Hollywood's most sought-after film writer and script doctor (Scarface, Spellbound, Notorious). Written for his Chicago Daily News column 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, the pieces vary from bar rooom comedy about specific artists to intellectual arguments about Modernism and beauty, subjects unexplored by other Hecht biographers.

Uncompiled until rediscovered on microfilm by archival research consultant and Hecht biobibliographer Florice Whyte Kovan, they rejuvenate and contextualize with her historical notes and profuse illustrations. Hecht interviews Primitivist Jerome Blum, visiting Russian painter Nicholas Roerich; satirizes landscape artist George Peyraud, expounds on Dadaist Johannes Van Baader. He features his own illustrators Herman Rosse and Wallace Smith, the latter illustrating Hecht's banned book, Fantasius Mallare. Two-page spreads recall George Grosz's early Americana drawings; works by eccentric Stanislaw Szukalski's, recently a NetFlix subject. No-Jury artists rejected at Art Institute of Chicago, as Hecht laments, receive a two-page cartoon spread. Over 20 artists referenced. Hecht's skyscraper stories track daily construction of the spire-topped Temple Building and extoll the iconic Wrigley Tower. A roman a clef with a surprise ending invokes the extravagant dreams of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Kovan's quirky landscape-oriented layout varies column height evoking the cityscape. Her research at Smithsonian Archives of American Art, MoMA and Library of Congress establishes that several artist friends became Hollywood artists and set designers. She adds scholarly value with material, 104 reference images including film stills; bibliography, image acknowledgements, internal commentary, endnotes, foreword, afterword, index. The vibrant sundrenched cover is from hand-made painted washi paper by Washington, DC artist Sheila Crider who created it for Kovan's original artist book.