In 1951, the second year of the Korean War, a studious, law-abiding, and intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, begins his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at a local college in Newark where he originally enrolled?
Maggie vowed to never marry a man who can’t laugh or dance, but when she and the dull new doctor in town, Everett Dulanis, wind up spending the night together in an abandoned dugout house, all that changes. Her father is the best man and his shotgun is the bridesmaid at the wedding where a union has been made, but there’s certainly no unity. Everett was engaged to Carolina Prescott, a southern lady in...