Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht is the author of novels and short stories inspired by the colorful characters he met while working as a reporter for the Chicago Journal and Chicago Daily News during the Jazz Age. In the following autobiographical excerpt, Hecht describes a chance encounter with a flapper, her fashion sense, and her trendy slang.

The newspaper man put on his last year's straw hat and went into the street, taking his pensiveness with him. Warm. Rows of arc lights. A shifting crowd. There are some streets that draw aimless feet. The blazing store fronts, clothes shops, candy shops, drugstores, Victrola shops, movie theatres invite with the promise of a saturnalia [wild celebration] in suspense.

At Wilson Avenue and Sheridan Road the newspaper man paused. Here the loneliness he had felt in his bedroom seemed to grow more acute...