Leroy Scott's To Him That Hath opens with a death: the Reverend Philip Morton is found dead in his bathtub, and his friend David Aldrich is summoned to manage his affairs. The novel quickly moves beyond this event into a story that intertwines David's life with characters from New York's lower depths, including an ex-convict and a young woman named Kate Morgan. The catalog subjects list love, self-sacrifice, ex-convicts, and New York social conditions, but the excerpts reveal a more specific focus: David's struggle to write a novel about a boy shaped by his environment, and his relationships with Kate and the wealthy Helen Chambers. The narrative voice is direct, with dialogue that captures the vernacular of its characters, as when Tom, a streetwise youth, boasts about his restaurant: 'T'irty cents is a lot for a dinner, but it's wort' it.'

Voice and Vernacular in Dialogue

The excerpts showcase a deliberate contrast in speech patterns. Tom, a character whose parents 'were the street,' speaks in a thick dialect: 'How'd you like de feed?' and 'Say, de grub here's swell, ain't it?' This vernacular is not merely decorative; it signals class and background. In contrast, David and Helen Chambers converse in more standard English. The dialogue is used to reveal character quickly—Tom's pride in his restaurant's tablecloths and napkins, for instance, shows his aspiration. Scott also uses dialogue to advance the plot, as when Kate whispers to David, 'Please talk with me this way again,' hinting at a bond that David worries may be compromised. The excerpts do not provide the full arc of these relationships, but the dialogue suggests that speech itself is a marker of the social divides the novel explores.

The Novel Within the Novel

David Aldrich is an author, and the excerpts describe his creative process. He receives a note from Helen suggesting he write 'a story of the man-making of a boy whom surroundings had forced toward destruction.' This idea takes hold of him: 'his imagination was impassionedly shaping characters and plot.' The novel thus contains a meta-narrative about writing a socially conscious book. David hopes such a story might 'awakening the public's sympathy for, and responsibility toward, the hundreds of thousands of children that are going to waste.' This aligns with the catalog subject of social conditions, but the excerpts show that the novel's interest is not in broad reform but in one writer's attempt to channel his experiences into fiction. The reader sees David's ambition and his self-doubt, as he wonders how he earned Helen's respect and yearns for more.

Setting as Social Commentary

The story is set in New York City, but the excerpts focus on specific locales: a restaurant run by Tom, where tablecloths and napkins are a point of pride, and the streets where characters like Kate and Tom navigate poverty. The catalog subject 'New York (N.Y.) – Social conditions – Fiction' is borne out in details like the 'frenzied music of a gypsy waltz' and the mention of a 'Mayor of Avenue A.' However, the excerpts do not depict the city's grand institutions; instead, they show small, intimate spaces—a dinner table, a doorway—where characters discuss their lives. The setting is not described in sweeping terms but emerges through the characters' actions and dialogue. For example, Tom's monologue about running his place—'It's hustle, an' worry, an' t'ink from when you gets up till when you goes to bed'—conveys the texture of working-class life without authorial commentary.

Readers should pay attention to how Scott uses the character of David as a lens through which to view the other figures. David's role as a writer means that the novel is as much about the act of storytelling as it is about the story itself. The excerpts suggest that the novel's interest in self-sacrifice and love is filtered through David's moral dilemmas, but the incomplete text leaves open how these themes resolve. Approach the book as a character-driven drama where dialogue and internal reflection carry the weight of social critique.