The Patriot

Another brilliant example of Evan Connell's art, The Patriot deals with an American boy who grew to maturity with World War II. He had learned his father's patriotism, and then, through the impact of firsthand experience, formulated his own.

Melvin Isaacs, aged seventeen, became a Navy Air Force cadet in 1942. His course of training as a flyer was an education in fear and death, even though it had its wonderfully comic times and a sense of comradeship that was new to him. Perhaps it was in t...