APOLOGY FOR A HERO

by A. L. Barker ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 1950

A different story of man's search for a goal and purpose, disturbing in its obliqueness and sly understatement. Charles Candy finds a small measure of reality and character into which he can button his tenuous personality through his marriage to tiny, feminine Wynne. This assumed stability is threatened by the appearance of Wynne's mysterious and paradoxical sister, Perry, whom Charles instinctively hates. Both Charles and Perry are out off from reality- the world before the last war- by intense egotism and it is Wynne who perishes over the cliffs of Cornwall, an accidental sacrifice to their self- absorption. With Wynne's death and the subsequent suspicion of his complicity, Charles tries every means of hiding from himself and becomes an easy prey to Perry's willful scheming. Repelled and at the same time drawn by her, he succumbs to his latent pathetic romanticism by financing and accompanying Perry on a trading voyage. Finding himself cheated by her, he still manages to keep a grip on this one shred of integrity within himself- his honest romanticism and when tragedy seeks him out a second time he is able to achieve the appropriate gallant and noble gesture. A subtlety of characterization, a blending of good and evil and singularly vivid description, marks this for the discriminating.

Pub Date: April 17, 1950

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1950

Categories: FICTION