1921. Ben Hecht, a Chicago journalist, went on to become a screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, novelist, regarded by some as the Shakespeare of Hollywood. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films. "Erik Dorn" is his first novel. Its sexual explicitness brought notoriety to Hecht. The book begins: "An old man sat in the shadows of the summer night. From a veranda chair he looked at the stars. He wore a white beard, and his eyes, grown small with age, watered continually as if he were weeping. Half-hidden under his beard his emaciated lips kept the monotonous grimace of a smile on his face."