Brief description:
From the dust jacket:
Melville Goodwin, Moior General in the U. S. Army and and, second only to Goodwin in importance is the narrator of this compelling story, Sidney Skelton, a radio commentator whose rise to tame has mode him quite as much a national figure as the General.
Melville Goodwin was a specialist in combat who become o general through the ambition of his wile Muriel. General Goodwin had led tanks Through the turmoil of war with only the usual press attention. But when he pushed aside the tommy gun of a Russian sentry in Berlin he become the local point of publicity and of the attentions of Dottie Peale. Muriel did not know Dottie and the General soon found himself in fields of action for which he hod not been trained. John Marquand has brought a great sympathetic understanding to this highly trained leader in war who hod become isolated from the sophisticated world out side the army. Dottie was noticeably attractive in any society and in the freedom of wartime Paris she represented lor Mel Goodwin a break in the monotony of high-echelon routine. That taste of excitement was not forgotten amidst his much publicized return to New York and Muriel‘s ambitious planning. Dottie understood Mel‘: need and was heedlessly eager to satisfy it. And Muriel knew that her husband was a general who could only belong to her by remaining a general.
The conflict between these two women and the General's struggle with himself as he searches for a normal lite despite his lifetime special training make the most dramatic novel Mr. Marquand has written. The characters spring from the tensions at our own times and the scenes are those most prominent in the minds of this generation. The activities oi the Pentagon, the excitement at New York, the liberties of Paris, the crisis of battle, the life in foreign stations and the quiet at small-town New England are all part of the General‘s career and responsibility.
The realistic portrayal of the relationship between the boy Melville and his father and the grown Melville and his sons, the youthfulness of his attraction for Dottie and the simplicity at his appreciation for his wife, are all “developed with the human sympathy, the ironic detachment, and the beguiling narrative charm that have so distinguished Mr. Marquand's work.
Melville Goodwin, Moior General in the U. S. Army and and, second only to Goodwin in importance is the narrator of this compelling story, Sidney Skelton, a radio commentator whose rise to tame has mode him quite as much a national figure as the General.
Melville Goodwin was a specialist in combat who become o general through the ambition of his wile Muriel. General Goodwin had led tanks Through the turmoil of war with only the usual press attention. But when he pushed aside the tommy gun of a Russian sentry in Berlin he become the local point of publicity and of the attentions of Dottie Peale. Muriel did not know Dottie and the General soon found himself in fields of action for which he hod not been trained. John Marquand has brought a great sympathetic understanding to this highly trained leader in war who hod become isolated from the sophisticated world out side the army. Dottie was noticeably attractive in any society and in the freedom of wartime Paris she represented lor Mel Goodwin a break in the monotony of high-echelon routine. That taste of excitement was not forgotten amidst his much publicized return to New York and Muriel‘s ambitious planning. Dottie understood Mel‘: need and was heedlessly eager to satisfy it. And Muriel knew that her husband was a general who could only belong to her by remaining a general.
The conflict between these two women and the General's struggle with himself as he searches for a normal lite despite his lifetime special training make the most dramatic novel Mr. Marquand has written. The characters spring from the tensions at our own times and the scenes are those most prominent in the minds of this generation. The activities oi the Pentagon, the excitement at New York, the liberties of Paris, the crisis of battle, the life in foreign stations and the quiet at small-town New England are all part of the General‘s career and responsibility.
The realistic portrayal of the relationship between the boy Melville and his father and the grown Melville and his sons, the youthfulness of his attraction for Dottie and the simplicity at his appreciation for his wife, are all “developed with the human sympathy, the ironic detachment, and the beguiling narrative charm that have so distinguished Mr. Marquand's work.
Publication
Bantam Books,(1951) Later,Pbk,,,Fair
Original publication date
1951