I have read a couple of books by Ward Just, though I have forgotten their names; I just know that he's supposedly a Washington D.C. writer, though this book is set in Chicago. It takes a couple of turns before you get into the story, baffling at first, but once you catch on, that it's the story of Lee Goddell, not Tommy Ogden, playboy, hunter, scallywag and founder of Ogden Hall, Lee's prep school, though it 's only a chapter or two in his life, which we follow from a Chicago suburb, to prep school, to college, the University of Chicago and Hyde Park, then marriage and beyond. You are taken with Lee from the start, as a young boy growing up after WW II in a small suburb, listening to his parents talk about the local problems, his father and the towns' leaders as they try to figure out how to deal with a brutal attack at the high school. Just creates interesting characters, leads us artfully through a young man growing up in a city like Chicago, so different from his early years. Each chapter of his life rings true, from youth, to high school, then college, then the beginning of life thereafter, as he tries to make sense of things, especially how memory of things past influence the future. I am finding out I read on because I want to figure out how the novel is going to end, though I usually have a pretty good idea. No bells and whistles, just a nice comfortable chair as we sit and observe as Lee charts his journey through family, school, art, and love.
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