Thomas Boyd

In Time of Peace: A Novel Thomas Boyd

Thomas Boyd is best known for "Through the Wheat," considered the greatest American novel of WW I. Boyd was a Marine, saw much fighting action, and was deeply influenced by his wartime experience. Later he wrote for newspapers, and while running a bookstore and writing the literary page of the St. Paul daily newspaper, was befriended by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who recommended him to Maxwell Perkins. Boyd published several books with Scribners, all edited by Perkins. "In Time of Peace" was Boyd's last published novel, originally published by Minton Balch Putnam in 1935. It is a powerful story of the upwardly mobile Roaring Twenties followed by the disaster of the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression. Boyd brilliantly captures the clash and contradictions of materialist life and higher human values. "In Time of Peace" will resonate strongly for many modern readers, who cannot help but to see the roots of our own contemporary struggles to cope with the complexities of modern society.