Editing The Stars Are Right: Frank Lovejoy

Following the armistice, Lovejoy, along with other Americans who had contributed to the war effort, was offered a place at Oxford. The high school dropout jumped at the chance. After graduating with a degree in History in 1923, he drifted around Europe for a few years, supporting himself as a correspondent for various American newspapers and magazines, among them the Chicago Star and the Detroit Evening Times. Although he tried his hand at writing fiction, producing a handful of short stories and a formless, nervous novel, Lovejoy was a better reader of fiction than a producer of it. He proved a popular newspaperman, however, and so in 1926 he accepted a job as a feature writer for the Chicago Star and returned to the States to pen ''Night Beat,'' a column focusing on the disaffected personalities and communities that thrived in the White City after hours. The rash of unexplained occurrences in February, 1929 was an especially fertile time for ''Night Beat;'' Lovejoy was widely syndicated, and his May 22 column titled [http://ia700300.us.archive.org/13/items/Nightbeat_otr/500522_I_Wish_You_Were_Dead.mp3 'I Wish You Were Dead'] was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing.

Following the armistice, Lovejoy, along with other Americans who had contributed to the war effort, was offered a place at Oxford. The high school dropout jumped at the chance. After graduating with a degree in History in 1923, he drifted around Europe for a few years, supporting himself as a correspondent for various American newspapers and magazines, among them the Chicago Star and the Detroit Evening Times. Although he tried his hand at writing fiction, producing a handful of short stories and a formless, nervous novel, Lovejoy was a better reader of fiction than a producer of it. He proved a popular newspaperman, however, and so in 1926 he accepted a job as a feature writer for the Chicago Star and returned to the States to pen ''Night Beat,'' a column focusing on the disaffected personalities and communities that thrived in the White City after hours. The rash of unexplained occurrences in February, 1929 was an especially fertile time for ''Night Beat;'' Lovejoy was widely syndicated, and his May 22 column titled [http://ia700300.us.archive.org/13/items/Nightbeat_otr/500522_I_Wish_You_Were_Dead.mp3 'I Wish You Were Dead'] was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing.

The stock market crash of 1929 cut deeply into the public's taste for the cavalcade of freaks, loners and dipsos that Lovejoy had chronicled with sympathy for nearly four years. The Star discontinued ''Night Beat,'' but offered to keep him on staff as a regular reporter for a substantially reduced salary. With more pride than sense, he declined, and returned to Bloomfield to try his hand at writing another book. '''Night Beat''', a memoir of his Chicago years, was critically well-received but failed to sell well.  

The stock market crash of 1929 cut deeply into the public's taste for the cavalcade of freaks, loners and dipsos that Lovejoy had chronicled with sympathy for nearly four years. The Star discontinued ''Night Beat,'' but offered to keep him on staff as a regular reporter for a substantially reduced salary. With more pride than sense, he declined, and returned to Bloomfield to try his hand at writing another book. '''Night Beat''', a memoir of his Chicago years, was critically well-received but failed to sell well.