The Historical Society of Greater Lansing and the Library of Michigan will honor Lansing’s forgotten author John Herrmann with an event celebrating the release of his 1926 banned book What Happens.
Historical Society President Valerie Marvin said that Herrmann was an intimate member of the “lost generation”, friends with Ernest Hemingway and a noted radical writer of the 1930s.
Dr. Sara Kosiba, who provided the introduction for the book, will give a talk regarding the novel, with some Hemingway references mixed into the talk. The book is an interesting novel for what it says about youth culture during the time it was written and for its contributions to discussion of literary obscenity at the time.
The novel was published in 1926 in Paris by McAlmon's Contact Editions press and then seized by U.S. Customs when a shipment arrived in the United States and essentially banned on charges of obscenity.
State Librarian Randy Riley said that the confiscation of What Happens and the resulting obscenity trial is an important part of Michigan literary history.
McAlmon’s Contact Editions press also published Ernest Hemingway's debut, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923).
The free event will be at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 11 in the Library of Michigan Forum Room, 702 West Kalamazoo St, Lansing, MI.
John Herrmann’s What Happens was a little before its time. Originally published in France in 1926 and seized by U.S. Customs for violating the 1922 Tariff Act, which banned the importing of obscene materials from foreign countries, the novel has never been published in the United States. Until now. What Happens tells the coming-of- age story of Winfield Payne, a young man from a wealthy Michigan family. Winfield’s struggles to make his way in the world are complicated by his awakening sexuality and fickle affections. He wants to be a hero, but modern life isn’t made for heroes.
What Happens (1926)
By John Herrmann
Introduction by Sara Kosiba
ISBN 978-1-942885-10-8 | paperback | 272 pages | ISBN 978-1-942885-11-5 | eBook