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THE RAINBOW MEN by Douglas Sheldon

THE RAINBOW MEN

By

Pub Date: Feb. 14th, 1974
Publisher: Doubleday

David Fulton Webster, a Yank in the R.A.F. bomber command, has flown eleven nerve-shattering missions over Germany when, in London, he meets his lost love, Sabena. Hasn't seen her for four years -- and she has a surprise for him: a son, David, Junior. They marry and after an idyllic honeymoon, David is shot down over the North Sea and freezes to death in a dinghy. Years pass and David Junior grows up with movie-star good looks. He's taken on as the sleep-in protege of a wealthy older woman who gets him parts in British films. When she dies, David falls for Else, a fraulein, while studying with Brecht's Berliner ensemble in East Germany. But Else too dies, of a rheumatic heart during labor, and David is left with a child and a starring role in a big literary flick. And then fate comes full circle: David too goes down on a flight from New York to London, and we last see him freezing in another dinghy. And so it goes on. . . . Quite lively war humor, sympathetic characterizations, but a ho-hum tale.