In Time of Peace

by Thomas Boyd

Thomas Boyd is best known for "Through the Wheat," considered the greatest American novel of WW I. Boyd was a Marine, saw much fighting action, and was deeply influenced by his wartime experience. Later he wrote for newspapers, and while running a bookstore and writing the literary page of the St. Paul daily newspaper, was befriended by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who recommended him to Maxwell Perkins. Boyd published several books with Scribner's, all edited by Perkins. In Time of Peace was Boyd's last published novel, originally published by Minton Balch Putnam in 1935. It is a powerful story of the upwardly mobile Roaring Twenties followed by the disaster of the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression. Boyd brilliantly captures the clash and contradictions of materialist life and higher human values. In Time of Peace will resonate strongly for many modern readers, who cannot help but to see the roots of our own contemporary struggles to cope with the complexities of modern society.

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

Thomas Boyd was raised by his mother's family due to his father's death before he was born. While still in school, he and a friend enlisted in the US Marine Corps and saw service in France, where he was gassed in 1918.

Upon discharge from the occupation forces in 1919, Boyd tried several occupations before becoming a writer for newspapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He opened a bookstore, Kilmarnock Books, in St. Paul, which became the locus of literary figures, including Sinclair Lewis. He was urged to write and produced the 1923 novel, Through the Wheat, based in part on his own war experiences.

Boyd later remarried and became interested in Socialist causes during the Depression, eventually running as the Communist candidate for governor of Vermont.

Reviews

[Tammy]

Recommended in the book, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading.