SOURCE: "A Novelist in the Making," in Frank Norris Revisited, Twayne Publishers, 1992, pp. 1-21.

In the following excerpt, McElrath traces Norris's early development as a journalist and fiction writer.

At the same time that Norris—at age 21—was realizing his mother's ideal conception of a son as college man and artist, a personality adjustment was occurring in him. Another side of his nature was emerging, for at Berkeley few fraternity men were as ferociously involved in the society as he became. The gloves and cane were put in the closet and some "regular guy" socialization began: the frat house became increasingly more central. Indeed, Norris's present fame outside of literary and historical circles includes his creation of a special annual dinner staged by the brothers of Phi Gamma Delta, still called "the Norris." Kissing the roasted whole pig as it was carried ritualistically into the banquet hall was...