John Held, Jr.'s Fiction

Author Glen Nelson discusses his discovery of an important body of 1930s fiction by one of the era's most famous cartoonists, John Held, Jr.  Today he's known for his magazine and newspaper illustrations of flappers and other 1920s characters, but in a flurry of activity from 1930 to 1937, John Held, Jr. published four novels and four collections of short stories that are mostly unknown today. This podcast episode describes the fiction, talks about how the author came to discover it, and makes the connections between Held's upbringing in Salt Lake City and how his Mormonism appear in his art and fiction.Liked this episode? Send us a text.