Book summary

The main character of this novel, David Harper, is based on Michener as a young man. An orphan from a hard and violent life, David attends a college closely resembling Swarthmore, travels widely, and struggles in Greenwich Village to be a writer. This novel was rejected by Macmillan, where Michener worked as an editor, and ultimately published by Random House, and was the cornerstone of Michener's longstanding relationships with editors Bennett Cerf and Albert Erskine.

Media reviews

"It is a soft, rather sprawling story, but saved from the sentimental excess with which it constantly flirts by a certain discipline of prose and by Mr. Michener's over-arching belief that, while there may be an attractive abundance of life and love among the deformed and dispossessed, the proper goal of a young hero is in a place within, rather than outside, the normal social framework."