Into What Far Harbour?

Far down Palm Drive he could see the dusty summer green of the Oval, the bright mosaic front of the Memorial Church, the gentle outlines of the Coast Range rising beyond. All was calm and placid in the warmth of the last September afternoon. The terrible war - the troubled peace - lives begun and already half over. It was twenty-five years since he had last seen that peaceful sight. It was only yesterday. World War II is over. And he has survived. His name is Richard Emmett Wilson - "Willie" - sometime lover, ofttime philosopher, once the envy of his college fraternity. In the years following the war, Willie and his friends must decide what they will do with their gift of life. Allen Drury's Into What Far Harbor? is the triumphant continuation of his University novels. It further develops the characters introduced in Toward What Bright Glory? as they seek that peaceful harbor of the good life, which seemed so distant in the mid-1940s. And which continues to elude them as they travel forth into the 1960s. Into What Far Harbor? is a story of survival, of success and broken dreams, of discovering what for each man or woman is tolerable, and what is not. Along the way the group will confront their individual attitudes toward race, sexuality, religion, and politics and will try to guide their own children as they grow into young adulthood. Set against the dramatic events of the mid-twentieth century, from World War II to Korea to the Cold War to Vietnam and ranging from Washington, D.C., to rapidly reviving West Germany, Into What Far Harbor? is a realistic reflection of a generation coming of age in a time of great conflict. In the final balance, Willie and his friends will come to understand that only increasing chaos and uncertainty have remained in a world they could not save. Into What Far Harbor? is a powerful, moving addition to Allen Drury's previous thought-provoking portrait of a generation struggling to find its way.


Genre: General Fiction