A.L.H., "Barking Up the Wrong Tree," Daily Herald

Those comfortable souls who have nothing except the “monotony” of the daily round to complain about do well to read Waiting for Nothing, by Tom Kromer (Constable,7s. 6d.), in which the Forgotten Man pleads with all the hopelessness that that you see in the eyes of a pit pony sold into darksome underground slavery.
The author spent five years, from the time he left college, where he paid his fees by working all night reading proofs, until he was twenty-eight, drifting across the United States doing odd jobs, sponging, begging, and trying to fin the courage to steal or kill himself.
He became one of the millions of homeless unemployed, bullied and harried by the police, sleeping on park benches and eating poisonous stew in soup kitchens. After such a life, surely these men could without impudence rely on a portion of pleasure and ease hereafter in lieu of all they had missed of this earth’s good things, yet they must suffer nightly threats of eternal damnation to get the food and beds offered by missions.
In writing this bewildering odyssey the author has used what he calls “stiff” idiom, “even though it was not always the nicest language in the world.” And despite a missing chapter, censored for safety by the publishers, his words, which quiver with life and movement, may cause some uneasiness.