One
of the most admired and honored of our contemporary literary artists,
author John Crowley now brilliantly re-creates a time in America when
ordinary people were asked to sacrifice their comforts and uproot their
lives for the cause of freedom.
In the early years of the 1940s, as the nation's young men ship off to
war, the call goes out for builders of the machinery necessary to
defeat the enemy. To this purpose, a city has sprung up seemingly
overnight in the windswept fields of Oklahoma: the Van Damme airplane
factory, a gargantuan complex dedicated to the construction of the B-30
Pax, the largest bomber ever built. Laborers--some men, but mostly
women, many of whom have never operated a rivet gun or held a
screwdriver--flock to this place, eager to earn, to grow, to do their
part. Many are away from home for the very first time, enticed by the
opportunity to be something more than wife and homemaker. In the middle
of nowhere they will live, work, and earn their own money, fearing for
the safety of their absent fighting men as the world around them
changes forever.
Vi, with her gun of a pitching arm, finds Van Damme after fleeing a
dying ranch and a stubborn, broken father to chase a future built on
something stronger than poison earth. Connie, once fragile and
helpless, follows an unfaithful husband here with their little boy in
tow--and inadvertently discovers who she is and what she's capable of
achieving. Before Diane can enter the factory's gates, the restless
young woman must leave behind the hot music and soldier boys she
followed, taking a sudden, bold, and dangerous step in pursuit of
something different, adult, and real.
Their journeys will be liberating in ways they couldn't imagine, and
will lead each of them to Prosper Olander. Disabled, an artist, a
forger, a friend--a surprising lover and compassionate
listener--Prosper has followed unlikely opportunity down a painfully
twisting path to take his place as the true heart and soul of a
temporary city. And before the B-30 Pax takes flight, he will change
the lives of four women in profound and unexpected ways.
Destined to stand tall among his previous acclaimed fiction--including
"Little, Big"; "The AEgypt Cycle"; "The Translator"; and "Lord Byron's
Novel"--John Crowley's "Four Freedoms" is perhaps his most heartfelt
and compelling novel to date. It is a moving, evocative, and
unforgettable saga of wives, mothers, and lovers--of strangers,
outcasts, and damaged Quixotes--who, unmoored by conflict's
unpredictable tides, find community, purpose, identity, independence .
. . and one remarkable man who will touch them all.
