An Unfinished Season

by Ward Just

Book Overview

A PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
WINNER OF THE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR FICTION
"Stunning."--USA Today
"A master American novelist." --Vanity Fair

Set in Eisenhower-era Chicago, An Unfinished Season brilliantly evokes a city, an epoch, and a shift in ideals through the closely observed story of nineteen-year-old Wilson Ravan. In his summer before college,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 061856828X
• ISBN13: 9780618568284
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful

What it was like to be 19 in the 1950's in the Midwest...excellent book, especially for those of us who lived through the era at the same age (albeit on the East Coast). A great story, well-written, which makes you think and remember with pleasure and the occasional wince what it was like in that era to be on the cusp of manhood, and then just past it.

Economical in words, generous in depth.

This is my first book by Ward Just but I will definitely go back and read some of his earlier work. I was consistently impressed with the economy of his words versus the depth he was able to impart through them, both in his description of people, places and situations. It is one of those books whose passages I will revisit in my mind for a long time. This is a beautifully written novel, deceptively simple at first but filled with thought provoking "life lesson" moments and comments. I am awed by the talent of this writer.

A wonderful coming-of-age novel from a brilliant writer

Reading novelist Ward Just is a journey to a different era in American literature. His work fits comfortably in the period of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. Indeed, readers of Just's most recent novel, AN UNFINISHED SEASON, may be struck by its distinct similarity in theme and tone to Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. Both novels view the clash between American cultures and class as observed by a young, innocent narrator learning difficult life lessons. The Nick Carraway of AN UNFINISHED SEASON is Wilson Ravan, a nineteen-year-old resident of Quarterday, Illinois, an affluent North Shore suburb of Chicago. "The winter of the year my father carried a gun for his own protection was the coldest on record in Chicago" begins the novel. The winter in question is the early 1950s when Midwestern America and the nation are suffering the trauma of post-World War II metamorphosis brought about by anticommunist fervor, worker unrest and reexamination of the role of the United States in a changing world. In the brief time frame of the novel, young Ravan will graduate from high school, prepare to enter the University of Chicago, spend his summer on the North Shore social circuit, and work as a copy boy at a tabloid Chicago newspaper. Along the way, the struggles of his father and mother to confront both business and personal dilemmas will awaken Wilson to the complexity and injustice of life. Just like Nick Carraway, he will see the destruction caused by shallow and callused people. Young Ravan meets Aurora Brule at one of the numerous debutant dances of the summer. The young couple fall in love. Aurora's father, Jack Brule, is a society psychiatrist, a man of complexity and mystery. Dr. Brule is a man burdened by tragic memories of World War II. Through this character, Ward Just, a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, is able to share with the reader his views on the experience and horrors of war. Like Ernest Hemingway, Just has led a rich and adventurous life. Those experiences form a foundation for his writing. Be it combat, politics, journalism or any number of issues, Just is not afraid to share with the reader his life experiences through the characters of his novel. Ward Just grew up in Waukegan, Illinois, a middle-class community north of Chicago lacking the social status of the mythical Quarterday community chronicled in AN UNFINISHED SEASON. His family owned a small paper, the Waukegan News-Sun, where Just spent his early years as a journalist. While this novel is not a biographical work, it is nonetheless written from the perspective of a man who has experienced the evils of yellow journalism. Just knows his profession and he also knows well the politics and psyche of the Midwest. Whether it is the working class laborers of Ted Ravan's factory, or the upper class debutantes of Lake Forest and Winnetka, the characters in this novel have been superbly created by a writer of brilliance and insight. Ward Just may be one of America's best-k

Excellent, Very Thoughtful 1950's USA !

Set between Winter, 1953, and Autumn, 1954 (except at the very end), this is a very, very fine look at the world seen through a very intelligent and sensitive 19 year old only (male) child, and his days in and around the great city of Chicago. Living a priviledged life literally on the golf course/ country club, this book grabs you from the first line, with the descriptions of union troubles and strikes at his father's paper plant, and his father skating in the nearby pond. The 1st person narrator (i.e. the 19 year old) is much quieter and more thoughtful than Dad, the team player who see his business torn apart by the strike. He seeks freedom beyond this narrow confine in the jazz clubs of the city, and the debutante balls among the upper crust, meeting many unusual people, including a psychiatrist with an unusual secret, plus his daughter whom our 19 year falls for. There's a lot going on between the lines, and the prose is perfect thruout. The ending seems very vague, but that may be the author's intention. All in all, a very worthy effort by Mr. Just.