Bøker av Ward S. Just

Sydney Van Damm loves living among foreigners: having escaped Germany and his boyhood memories of World War II, he makes a life as a translator in Paris. There he meets Angela, an American expatriate who becomes his wife. Their marriage is brushed by tragedy, and in the turbulent seventies and eighties, as the new Europe is born, Sydney gets involved in an East German scam that comes crashing down around him.

This masterly volume comprises the best shorter fiction written by Just over the last 25 years. "The working life, the war, politics, love affairs, and marriage seem to be the waters in which my boats set sail," Just writes. Here is a generous selection of the work that has earned Just his reputation as "one of the most astute writers of American fiction."

A young pollster named Jack Gance becomes a savvy Washington political insider and eventually a U.S. senator - but not without paying the usual dues, which turns out to be a dirty business. Gance wastes his love on married women, but ultimately learns who his true mistress is: "I had arrived an apprentice from Chicago, but Washington had taken care of that. It was a great city. . . . It gave and gave and gave and gave and expected nothing in return but loyalty."