The Finished Man

by George Garrett

Mike Royle, passionless and uncommitted, flees New York's gray winters, the dull routine of his law firm job, and the malaise of his recent divorce to return to his Florida hometown and work for longtime family friend Senator Allen Parker. Parker shocks constituents by announcing his bid for another term - after his protege and the Party's rising star John Batten as declared his own candidacy. When Mike's father, the hardscrabble success Judge Joseph Royle, also joins the race, a rabid course is set, and Mike - saddled with both southern roots and a modern conscience - stumbles toward the self-knowledge of a finished man.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

(For the British short story writer, playwright, and political activist see George Garrett)

George Palmer Garrett was an American poet and novelist. He was the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. His novels include The Finished Man, Double Vision, and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from the Sun. He worked as a book reviewer and screenwriter, and taught at Cambridge University and, for many years, at the University of Virginia. He is the subject of critical books by R. H. W. Dillard, Casey Clabough, and Irving Malin.