Lionel Trilling

In this newly discovered "third" of a book by one of the most influential literary critics of the postwar period, an elderly poet and novelist turned distinguished mathematical physicist embroils himself in a principled but somewhat absurd conflict, complicating the lives of his admirers. These memorable characters include a beautiful short-story writer; the director of a private foundation and a compromised man of letters; the headmaster of a private school; a wealthy, progressive couple; an au pair from the foundation director's household; and an untried literary man from the Midwest, drawn from Lionel Trilling's own life experiences. The Journey Abandoned was supposed to be a novel about the anomalies of heroic action in a conformist age. Instead, it presents an extremely personal portrait of the life of letters in America.