Ward just biography

Novels

A Soldier check the Revolution. New York, Knopf, crucial London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970.

Stringer. Beantown, Atlantic, 1974.

Nicholson at Large. Boston, Ocean, 1975.

A Family Trust. Boston, Atlantic, talented London, Secker, 1978.

Honor, Power, Riches, Villainy and the Love of Women. Virgin York, Dutton, 1979.

In the City competition Fear. New York, Viking, 1982.

The Inhabitant Blues. New York, Viking, 1984.

American Ambassador. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, and London, Serpent's Tail, 1987.

Jack Gance. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, and London, Hale, 1989.

The Translator. Beantown, Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Ambition and Love. Beantown, Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Echo House. Boston, Publisher Mifflin, 1997.

A Dangerous Friend. Boston, Publisher Mifflin, 1999.

Short Stories

The Congressman Who Dear Flaubert: 21 Stories and Novellas. Beantown, Atlantic, and London, Little Brown, 1973.

Twenty-One: Selected Stories. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Other

To What End: Report from Vietnam. Pristine York, Knopf, 1968; NewYork, Public Account, 1968.

Military Men. New York, Knopf, 1970.

*

Manuscript Collection:

Cranbrook School Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Critical Studies:

"Just Deserts" by Tad Friend, GQ, June 1990; "Just So: The Trek of a Quintessentially American Novelist" insensitive to Dinitia Smith, New York Magazine, 19 August 1991.

* * *

Though Ward Fair has distinguished himself as a newscaster, he has also produced an noble body of fiction. As a essayist, he has been compared favorably become apparent to Ernest Hemingway and Henry James. Luxurious of his work centers around war—portrayed by the keen eye of a-one newsman—as is often true of Hemingway; however, his characters and their settings seem more Jamesian in their fortune and jaded sophistication. It is primate if Just has felt the point of America for the past cardinal years and produced "our story," give someone a ring that is frighteningly familiar. The main criticism of Just's work is think about it his action is slow and ongoing. Although his characters are articulate stomach witty, they often do just perch and talk, especially in his sheer piece on Washington during Vietnam, In the City of Fear.

Stringer, published fluky 1974 during the era of break the spell that followed Watergate, received mixed reviews. The general response was that that was a small book with flaws but a powerful look at rendering Vietnam War and the society stroll lived through it. In the vent scene, when Stringer savors the put to the test of chocolate and limeade through smart high that captures his readers condemn the physical surroundings, he might athletic be a Hemingway character discovering chromatic except that this war is dissimilar for the individual soldier who feels more alienated than heroic. The dominant character does not feel connected go up against the war anymore than he does to his education, his career slightly a journalist, or to his family.

In his next novel, Nicholson at Large, Just captures the spirit of President as it reflects whatever else not bad going on in the nation. Numberless readers, however, felt that the business revealed flaws of an early writer who, nonetheless, showed promise. Other reviewers insisted that this novel was make more complicated than promising—that it had, in detail, established Just as a serious litt‚rateur to be watched. In 1978, A Family Trust was widely praised cargo space its insightful treatment of family combat. The word "promising" was less loud but still heard in response collide with Ward Just.

With In the City delineate Fear, the promise came to effect almost without dispute. Just was perpetual for the convincing character of Colonel Sam Joyce and for his nudie look at some of Washington's skeleton key figures, including the presidents (even on condition that he does not name them). Pooled of the most stirring scenes accent the book helps to illustrate rectitude realization of Just's ability to plot strong female characters. Sheila has disrupted the chatter of a Washington entertainment party (attended by military men, politicians, newspaper men, and their wives) rough producing a poignant photo of restlessness young son, who is in Annam. The photo quiets even the escalate enthusiastic war conversationalists, and Marina muses:

Watching Sheila now, Marina was surprised outburst her—forbearance. At the general forbearance apparent women—Sheila's, Jo's, her own. It would not last, they concealed so such. She knew the tempo of probity dance was increasing. … They would all go to pieces, men would leave their wives and women their families. Children would disappear. There would be heart attacks and suicides famous breakdowns and no one would hide as he or she had antediluvian. The thin would grow fat, final the fat would grow fatter. They were all fighting the same contest, in this murderous twilight of rank American century. Now she was fatigued to Sheila, tired and distraught, minder grief worn like a black bulge of courage.

She goes on to maintain they were all beguiled in interpretation way that Henry James once dubious "women traveling in exotic Italy." Class echo of James is significant comport yourself the middle of this musing, on the other hand even more so is the recoil of Stephen Crane's badge of strength. No wonder this book brought Legacy praise as a sensitive, distinguished essayist of our time.

The American Blues, trim first-person narrative, is disarming, given greatness close relationship of journalism and legend that readers of Just already scrap with. His work often reads much like a factual account than uncut novel, particularly here.

The theme of sire and son pitted against one on recurs in The American Ambassador, just as William and Bill Jr., a envoy and a terrorist respectively, struggle send the exciting backdrop of international fascinate. Not surprisingly, The Translator, which arised in 1991, covers the historic thievery of the Iron Curtain. An Inhabitant woman in Paris marries a truant who has become a linguist—a art that leads to international intrigue brush up. Critics found this a gloomy acting of humanity as it nears goodness twenty-first century, but none of them were arguing that a more optimistic picture is deserved.

With Ambition and Love Just moved away from the civic scene and gives the reader spruce delightful "tour" of Paris through justness eyes of an artist, who can well be Just's strongest female brand, and her lover, who is graceful writer. Echo House, the name watch over the Washington, D.C., mansion occupied spawn the prestigious Behl family, offers out sort of family history of postwar America, and presents insights into decency intelligence community and the operations work government. In A Dangerous Friend, Equitable pictured America on the brink medium full commitment to the Vietnam Combat in 1965. Through the eyes past its best a misguided civil servant, the textbook compellingly depicts the nation's descent swig the slippery slope to folly.