So Little Time

A Novel

John P. Marquand

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781504015714
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A father frets over his son's future while reexamining his own past in John P. Marquand's enduring portrait of America on the brink of World War II
A script doctor who divides his time between Manhattan, Hollywood, and a country home in New England, Jeffrey Wilson has entered middle age with all the trappings of success. Yet, in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, he feels increasingly anxious and isolated. He fears that his eldest son, a college sophomore, will be called to fight before he has had a chance to live on his own terms.
 
Two decades ago, Jeffrey served in World War I, and his life since then seems like a series of accidents. Instead of the journalism career he aspired to, he toils to fix other people's plays. By marrying into a prominent family, he gained wealth and stature, but sacrificed his autonomy. His friends and acquaintances, most of whom were chosen by his wife, are foolish and vain..
 
Powerless to rewind the clock or hold back the tides of global conflict, Jeffrey offers his son the one piece of advice that is impossible for a young man to hear: Time is running out. Witty, moving, and meticulously observed,  So Little Time is the story of a crucial period in American history and one man's attempts to make sense of it all.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• For the Reader Who Takes His Fiction Seriously
• 1 Why Didn’t You Ever Tell Me?
• 2 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• 3 Really Simple Fellows, Just like You or Me
• 4 Just a Report from London
• 5 Don’t Get Me Started on That
• 6 There’s Everything in New York
• 7 It Completely Lacks Validity
• 8 That Old Town by the Sea
• 9 And Fred Too, of Course
• 10 Just Don’t Say We’re Dead
• 11 This—Is London
• 12 I’ll Wait for You by Moonlight
• 13 You Can’t Blame Those Little People
• 14 Those Ways We Took from Old Bragg High
• 15 Now You’ve Found Your Way
• 16 Just the Day for Tea
• 17 We’ll Show ’Em, Won’t We, Jeff?
• 18 Never Twice in a Lifetime
• 19 And All the Heart Desires
• 20 Old Kaspar, and the Sun Was Low
• 21 Careful How You Stir Them, George
• 22 Where Everything Was Bright
• 23 The Peach Crop’s Always Fine
• 24 Well, Hardly That
• 25 He Had to Call on Jim
• 26 We Were Young Ourselves Once
• 27 The World of Tomorrow
• 28 Your Sister, Not Mine
• 29 To the Publishers, God Bless Them
• 30 But When It Comes to Living
• 31 It Was Simpler for the Prince
• 32 He Didn’t Have Much Time
• 33 Where the Initials Are Marked in Pencil
• 34 Dear Jim:…
• 35 Mr. Mintz Was Very Tired
• 36 You’re in the Army Now
• 37 Don’t Speak Any Lines
• 38 It’s Time to Take the Clipper
• 39 By the Numbers
• 40 Wonder Spelled Backwards
• 41 Nothing Goes On Forever
• 42 Author’s Reading
• 43 You Can’t Do with Them—or without Them
• 44 My Son as Much as Your Son
• 45 Well, Here We Are
• 46 Conversation in the Small Hours
• 47 Just around the Corner
• 48 The Little Men
• 49 The Time for all Good Men
• 50 Old Soldiers Never Die
• 51 Forgive Us Our Debts
• About the Author
• Copyright Page