In The Hours of Night (Stated First Edition/Stated First Print - F/VF with VG/F DJ)

by William Bradford Huie (1910-1986)

Price: $27.50

[30 Day Return Guarantee]

[Ask bookseller a question]
[E-mail to a friend] [Shipping rates & speeds]

Description

Delacorte, New York NY (1975) HC w/ DJ, Stated First Edition/Stated First Print (Copyright page states: First Printing, jacket's inner flap states: 0975), 8vo, 335 pages; Book: F/VF, clean, tight and sound, near as new, appears a once read or an unread, nothing derogatory of note, very attractive full half cloth bound, marbled-pattern red boards with black cloth spine and spine-turns, bright silver and neon red lettering to spine; Pages: F/VF, clean, white and secure, mild foxing to edges, elsewise nothing derogatory of note, fancy black endpapers and pastedowns; DJ: F/VF, clean and bright, tip wear top two, edge wear top and bottom to spine, two closed fingernail tears top front approximate 1/2" each, elsewise nothing derogatory of note, not clipped, price still showing on front inner flap (not a remainder/not a book club ed./not a Library ed.) Synopsis: From the renowned author of, The Americanization of Emily, comes an extraordinary documentary novel about a high government official during World War II who is destroyed by a conflict of conscience. Only William Bradford Huie could have woven together fact and fiction so skillfully. He sheds startling light on the politics of the atom bomb and the high-level secrecy that gave us the legacy of Watergate. This was one of Hue's most important and controversial books: Thomas Francis Castleton, advisor to President Roosevelt, is charged in 1942 with overseeing the development of the atom bomb --- an assignment that leads to his nervous collapse and incarceration in a naval hospital in Washington. His wife Diane, torn between her love for her husband and her fear that he is a security risk, is unable to free him. His loving nurse, Mary Sullivan, is determined to restore his physical potency even if she cannot give him back his moral strength. His psychotherapist attempts to unravel the terrible skeins of guilt that bind Frank Castleton's spirit. In counterpoint to this human story is the revelation of what has happened to America since World War II --- how it moved from the political optimism of the Roosevelt era to the beginning of the Cold War with Truman. Huie takes his readers from the Southern opulence of the Castleton family mansion, to the secret enclaves of Roosevelt's Hyde Park conference rooms, to the Los Alamos laboratories where the bomb was developed. He intricately explores the finer points of man's fidelity to a higher purpose than his own small life. In doing so Huie has given us a timeless novel which is both captivating and compelling. In The Hours of Night was William Bradford Huie's 11th work, including fiction and nonfiction.