Hot Saturday

New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Very Good. 1926. 3rd printing. Hardcover. NOISBN . (no dust jacket) [light scuffing to covers, spine cloth a little faded, beginnings of a binding split about 2/3 of the way through the book]. The author's fourth novel, set in a small New Mexico community, concerns the events surrounding the budding romance between a frustrated young woman and a young millionaire from Back East; it takes its title from the fact that the narrative is confined to a single, sweltering hot weekend. It was billed by its publisher as "a sardonic tale," which earned the derision of the New York Times critic, who observed (in comparing the book to "Main Street") that "all that the author of [this book] has done to further the scientific study of small-town life is to set his tale within the environs of a small Far Western community, and to people his story with two or three morons." Fergusson spent some time screenwriting in Hollywood during the 1930s, and this book served as the basis for a 1932 film adaptation starring Nancy Carroll, a young Randolph Scott, and an even younger Cary Grant (the latter in the very early stage of his Hollywood career). A very scarce book, for reasons I can't quite explain. .