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It is 1934. Red-headed Henry Cook, fresh out of Amherst and worked up about working on his first booklet at an infamous authors' colony, finds the Vermont island retreat at the invitation of its owner, Thaddeus Hulbert, a boisterous, bellowing, bloviated curmudgeon, whose reputation as a novelist, columnist, and radio commentator has vaulted him to national prominence. Additional island guests include Clarence Fitch, the editor of any prominent NY publication; Agnes Sterner, a stylish, mature girl, also an author and good friend of Hulbert's; Daisy Lester, a nationally-known nightclub vocalist also known by Hulbert and friends to be a heavy drinker if not viewed carefully; and Leith O'Fallon, an artist, copy writer, and liberal cause protester for whom Henry falls hard. One of the supporting individuals are Mr. Veitch, the slow-drawling Vermonter who navigates the email vessel to and from the island, and Jenny, the shrieking housekeeper and prepare food who is likely - genially if not loudly - to the needs of Hulbert's guests. Entirely Bounded is a somewhat venomous roman à clef poking satirically at the practices of many of the Algonquin Round Table notables: Alexander Woollcott (Hulbert), Alice Duer Miller (Sterner), Dorothy Parker (Lester), Harold Ross of the New Yorker (Fitch), and Neysa McMein, popular publication cover illustrator (O'Fallon). The novel's author and narrator, Charles Brackett (Cook), had been a regular at the Algonquin for quite some time before leaving for Hollywood at the optimum of the group's notoriety. Through Completely Bounded, Brackett deconstructs the Round Table's core elite and re-assembles them on the lake encircled hideaway to endure each other's company, play croquet, backgammon, cribbage, and anagrams, all under the withering snide and trimming bombasts of the host, Hulbert. The story's narrator, Henry Cook, is the mean gang's naïve foil, bounded as he's by the idols of his literary dreams, viper-toothed gods who choose petty fights over silly games, and chide one another, and Henry, mercilessly over factors of literature and public graces. Yet, there is certainly compassion and like to be on the island, and a twist to the story that brings Henry face-to-face along with his deepest insecurities. Brackett, one of the earliest New Yorker crisis critics, prolific publication columnist, and short-story author and novelist, brings to Entirely Bounded elements of his own New England upbringing, his Ivy Little league education, his curious marriage, and his not-well-concealed need for public and professional agreement. Brackett realized all the players quite nicely, and even though the booklet is a biting commentary on the group's interrelationships and foibles, Brackett received grudging congratulations even from Woollcott and Parker, who needed the majority of Brackett's jabs. Completely Bounded is narrated by Charles Brackett's grandson, C. James Moore.
