An Affair of Honor - Hardcover

Marius, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375412395 ISBN 13: 9780375412394

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2001

Synopsis

At the center: Charles Alexander, twenty, groomed from birth by his mother to be a Baptist minister, teetering on the edge of his faith. In his last year of college, working late one night at the newspaper office, he accidentally witnesses the murders. The killer is Hope Kirby, World War II hero, member of a large mountain clan of farmers, who has discovered his wife's infidelity. Although Kirby's code of honor requires that he exact vengeance, it won't allow him to kill an innocent bystander, and Charles goes free, promising not to tell what he's seen.
But Charles does tell, and we watch, fascinated, as a trial, an appeal, and a new terror unleashed on the countryside draw the entire country into the action. Among the people most closely involved: the skillful, overweight, hard-drinking lawyer for the defense; two Baptist preachers - one liberal, one a strict constructionist - each with a secret to hide; a lady banker determinedly headed for trouble; a big-hearted good-old-boy sheriff; Charles's disturbingly freewheeling, freethinking sometime college girlfriend. Most importantly, we see the Kirby clan: Pappy, whose extraordinary patience, hard work, and self-reliance cause his hardscrabble farm to prosper until he's turned out by the coming of a national park; and the five Kirby sons, who are trying hard to make a new place for themselves in the town.
As these and others play their parts in the affair of honor, we see Charles and the Kirbys begin to reexamine their dramatically opposing but equally encapsulated ways of viewing life - fundamentalist Christian and ancient "code of the hills." And as the novel draws to its climactic and satisfying close, we see them - and finally the entire town - profoundly, permanently changed.

About this title

Review:

Rich and wonderful -- New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher:

A gripping double murder propels the small, Bible-obsessed town of Bourbonville, Tennessee, into the wider society opening up in the years following World War II.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375412395
• ISBN 13: 9780375412394
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 591