Reviews An Odd Book: A Biography of Odd McIntyre by R. Scott Williams

It’s difficult to write about An Odd Book without lapsing into name-dropping. And maybe that’s the way it should be for a book about one of America’s pioneering journalists to the stars, Gallipolis native son O.O. “Odd” McIntyre. After all, McIntyre was a close friend of Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin, hung out in Paris with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, hosted parties where George Gershwin played piano until the sun came up. So, yeah, there are names. R. Scott Williams is interested in those names, too, though he’s interested in far more than that. In An Odd Book, the author explores American popular culture writ large. (The book’s second subtitle is How the First Modern Pop Culture Reporter Conquered New York.) That celebrity culture was facilitated first by the advent of the radio, then by the moving pictures. But Williams also explores early-20th-century journalism, especially a muck-raking, progressive newspaper like McIntyre’s Cincinnati Post, which feuded—much to its peril— with powerful big city boss Mayor George B. Cox.

SMALL-TOWN BOY MAKES GOOD

On the one hand, McIntyre’s career arc encompassed a classic story line: A small-town boy makes good in the glitzy and glamorous metropolis. “Most of my newspaper days have been consecrated to the study of those fortunates in the passing promenade,” McIntyre wrote, “who have obtained that nebulous quality called celebrity.”

But Williams is just as fascinated by McIntyre’s turbulent physical and mental health, his suffering brought on by an undiagnosed case of pernicious anemia, an autoimmune disease marked by an acute deficiency of B12 in the body. Left untreated, the ailment can damage the nervous and digestive systems and the heart, all maladies that afflicted McIntyre.

Despite his chronic illness, McIntyre succeeded at newspapers in Gallipolis, Dayton and Cincinnati, and went on to “conquer” New York, in the author’s words, to become one of the highestpaid reporters in the country. But none of this happens without the co-star of Williams’s biography: McIntyre’s wife, muse and business manager, Maybelle.

Hard Times

After initially prospering in New York, the couple fell on hard times. At one point, they moved into a room in the Hargrave Hotel and cooked illicit meals on a hot plate. Just when McIntyre was about to despair, though, he discovered a latent talent for public relations work and was eventually hired by the owner of the Majestic Hotel for promotional work. (The McIntyres were paid with a free apartment.)

But McIntyre soon became disillusioned with public relations. He wanted to write for himself, to use all the skills he’d acquired coming up in the newspaper business, to see his own byline. McIntyre, like countless journalists, wrote, “Since my earliest recollection I wanted to be a newspaper reporter and I cannot tell you why.”

Then the couple landed on an intriguing idea: Odd would write an “about town” letter to be distributed to smaller newspapers across the country. Maybelle would make copies of each letter and mail them to editors, giving them permission to print the letter in question and to pay whatever they felt was a fair price. Slowly, the money began to roll in and demand for the feature grew.

The letter—eventually it was called New York Day by Day—was appealing to small-town and rural Americans because McIntyre never lost his awe. “I am still pretty much the yokel,” McIntyre wrote, “and what success I have had in writing of New York for the out country has been due to my enthusiasm for it. I cannot walk on Fifth Avenue, Broadway or any other part of town without experiencing a certain thrill.”

SUCCESS!

In the end, McIntyre succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Williams writes, “Odd McIntyre didn’t write to become rich, and he would certainly be surprised that, at least in Gallipolis, Ohio, he is still a little famous.” McIntyre didn’t write for posterity. He wrote, rather, to entertain “people a little every day.”

—Bill Eichenberger, Echoes Magazine

A National Historic the Ohio