Glory for Me

Speaking Volumes
Ebook
268
Pages
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More

About this ebook

MACKINLAY KANTOR

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Andersonville

GLORY FOR ME

A Novel in Verse

By MacKinlay Kantor



BASIS FOR THE MOVIE

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

It is seldom in time of war that an au­thor, no matter how emotionally aware of what it all means, can write a book which expresses the feeling that moti­vates fighting men. Why did it happen this way, why is it ending this way— what are we now that it is done with, now that we are home? Indeed, are we home, or are we in a boarding-house of confusion and wretchedly defeated purposes and understandings?

MacKinlay Kantor is one of Amer­ica's best-known novelists. It might be said that if any author could write that book Kantor would be the one for the job, but it takes more than mere professional writing skill to achieve such a major accomplishment. It takes awareness born of action and danger and keenly felt knowledge. Such knowl­edge MacKinlay Kantor has found, and in his novel of war and its men, Glory for Me, he has wholly expressed it.

Well above the draft age, and physi­cally unacceptable to the armed forces, Kantor intensely felt the need to join his younger fellows in some way; in some way he had to be a part of the danger, the horror, the glory of this war. He found his opportunity as a war correspondent. As such, based in Eng­land, he flew in combat with the U. S. Air Forces and the R.A.F. over enemy territory into flak and fire. As such he learned to know the fighting men whose constant companion, friend and fellow-in-war he was for many months. For the equivalent of a leave Kantor came back to the United States, and what filled his mind and his heart and his thoughts had to find expression in a book, which is Glory for Me.

Glory for Me is a simple novel—about three service men, honorably dis­charged for medical causes, who re­turn home to the same town where in peacetime they had not known one an­other. Now they know one another, and through them we know them and their town and our country and war and peace and man.

Glory for Me is a national epic, told in language of the common man, in language of the poet: told as only an American could tell it.

About the author

MacKinlay Kantor was born in Webster City, Iowa, in 1904. He began to write seriously at sixteen, became a newspaper reporter at seventeen, and published his first book at twenty-three. Over the next half-century, he went on to produce more than forty works including novels, short story collections, novels in verse, novellas, histories and children’s books. His best-selling historical novel, Andersonville, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. MacKinlay Kantor’s other accomplishments included Hollywood screenwriting, patrolling the streets with the N.Y.P.D., and combat experience (RAF and USAF) in two wars, for which he was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.