First published 2015
Major General Melville Goodwin sits across from radio commentator Sid Skelton, ready to tell his life story to a weekly news magazine. The druggist's son from small-town America has become a military hero, surviving two world wars and rising to command an armored division. His recent act of courage in postwar Berlin, braving enemy fire to rescue a fellow American, has thrust him into the national spotlight. Over many hours, Goodwin recounts his journey from childhood through West Point, battlefield horrors, and a marriage to an ambitious woman who shaped his career. But Skelton has other interests. He wants to hear about Dottie Peale, the spirited journalist Goodwin loved in wartime France. Skelton harbors his own feelings for Dottie, and she plans to reenter Goodwin's life now that fame has found him. As the interview unfolds, the general discovers that his moment of greatest public triumph may cost him everything he values most. His marriage hangs in the balance, his career faces uncertainty, and the past refuses to stay buried.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, biographical-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, Berlin, France
Period: Postwar, Wartime
599 pages · Kindle Edition · Open Road Media