An Unfinished Season: A Novel

Summary

An Unfinished Season captures the postwar moment of the 1950s, a time of rabid anti-communism, worker unrest, and government corruption, when the modern world lay just over the horizon.

On the margins of Chicago’s North Shore, nineteen-year-old Wilson Ravan watches as his father’s life unravels. Gruff, unapproachable Teddy Ravan is confronting a strike and even death threats from union members who work at his printing business. Wilson, in the summer before college, finds himself straddling three worlds: the newsroom, where he has landed a coveted job as a rookie reporter, and where his colleagues find class struggle at the heart of every issue; the whirl of glittering North Shore debutante parties where he spends his nights; and the growing cold war between his parents at home. These worlds collide when he falls in love with the willful daughter of a renowned psychiatrist with a frightful past in World War II.

With unparalleled grace, Ward Just brings Wilson’s circle to radiant life. Through his finely wrought portraits of a father and son, young lovers, and newsroom dramas, Just also stirringly depicts an American political era.