This sprawling novel concerns the lives of two generations in one family; of their loves both licit and illicit, of their work, and of their personal triumphs and tragedies. It is a story, at first, about the three Woodruff brothers: Peter, a businessman, Leonard, an artist, and Ike, an attorney and member of Congress who risks his political career to prevent a lynching and bring justice to a black man falsely accused of murder. And it is about George Islar, a thoughtful physician, and his beautiful wife, Margaret, who is loved by Leonard. It is a triumphant expression of the human spirit, of the artist and of the forces that inevitably mold the lives of each succeeding generation, told by a modern master who has lived to see all of the ages of man about which he so consummately writes.
Berry Fleming was an American novelist. He is best known for his 1943 novel Colonel Effingham’s Raid. He was born in 1899 and died in 1989. Permanent Press reissued several novels in the 80s. He received a resurgence in popularity with the publication of his last novel, Captain Bennett’s Folly, in 1989 just months before his death. The work was favorably reviewed in The New York Times, among other publications, and since then many of his earlier neglected novels have been republished with more successful sales than during his lifetime.