A LEGACY OF LOVE

by Edwin Daly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 1958

A second novel (Some Must Watch- 1957) while using the background of the first- a summer on Lake Michigan, and drawing the same uncomfortable conclusions to youthful hopes, shows a surer control and achieves a dramatic urgency which the earlier book lacked. Susie Churchill is twenty, in her last year at college, and living up to her father's ambitions for her, since his legacy of love includes the expectation that she will be something special. Victor Churchill had hoped to be a doctor- but had been trapped by economic circumstances into marriage with an older woman- and teaching. As the summer opens, Susie is dating Buddy, the son of the town's most successful, self-made man, with no assets except his money; as it continues- she learns- through Buddy- that her father is having an affair with his mother; and with the ruin that this revelation brings, she goes on to have her first love affair with Phil, an old friend of Buddy's, a writer, and a sensitive sort who conceals from her the fact that he has a serious heart condition. Phil leaves town suddenly- and dies, and since Susie is pregnant, she has no choice except the marriage which Buddy offers her, partly to cancel out his responsibility in Phil's death, partly to give him a hold on Susie she can never escape.... Successfully sobering.

Pub Date: Sept. 29, 1958

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1958

Categories: FICTION