THE HUGE SEASON

by Wright Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1954

This new novel may well be the one that brings Morris a popular audience as well as critical notice, and his subject, the successors to the Lost Generation and what happened to them in the '30's and '40's until they were tried in the intellectual furnace of our time, is immediate and pressing. Using, with greater complexity, the device of Man and Boy, a day's trip from a Philadelphia suburb to New York and the happenings there, alternating with earlier events involving the same people, tell the story of three men and a woman as they are affected by the life and death of their friend- Charles Lawrence- who for them epitomizes the era of the '20's. The narrator, Peter Foley, reads that one of their number- Jesse Proctor- has been called before the McCarthy committee and goes to see him, their mutual girl- Lou Baker, and a playboy friend of Lawrence's- Dickie Livingston. As the day progresses, he remembers the college years with Lawrence (tennis player, bullfighter, and finally suicide), the brief period in Paris and all of their other times of ""conviction without intention"" which have brought them to the witness chair. In spite of the fact that Lawrence, himself, is never quite real, and perhaps is never meant to be, the book comes off with considerable impact and pathos. Morris is alternately sardonic, ironic, straightforward, impressionistic. If he is less quirky, if his wit is not as sharp as his observation, if the novel is quite a bit less perfect than his last- The Deep Sleep, he is trying a bigger thing in time, space and meaning. No one should be disappointed.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1954

ISBN: 0803258054

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1954

Categories: FICTION