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Four Freedoms: A Novel (2009)

by John Crowley(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0061231509 (ISBN13: 9780061231506)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

William Morrow

review 1: A superb exploration of the American home front from the perspective of a disabled youth during World War II. It's plotted like an Altman movie in that it follows the intersecting lives of a large cast of flawed, uprooted characters who are thrown together in an airplane factory in an overnight boom city in Oklahoma. The novel captures the great geographic mobility of the period and the exciting sense of possibility for women and other ordinary folk trying to find or reinvent themselves. Many poignant, astutely observed scenes conveying life's many cruelties (including stairs to a man on crutches) and kindnesses (especially lovemaking). There's no great "will he or won't he?" drama pulling one toward the conclusion. The story ends with the war's end and the city's return t... moreo prairie, but for a time it all came alive -- the work, the carousing, the engineering, the secrets kept and shared, and the freedoms gained.
review 2: Interweaving of the lives of war-time women with one remarkable man (a lover not a fighter) - interesting because Crowley says in his afterword that his book is set in a place of time and space "of the Mind" which builds on the historical truths of the Home Front and the War - takes a geographical setting and fictionalizes it - makes a living truth of fiction. The plentiful and rich research that went into the novel - ramped up and layered with the imagination. less

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