From the gangster-ridden politics of Depression-era Chicago to the intrigue and glamour of wartime Washington; from the triumph of virtue in the defeat of Hitler to the moral chaos of Vietnam; from inner-circle turf battles in the Pentagon to tear-gas conflict in the streets; from a man's inbred solitude to the story of an extraordinary loveβ Memorial Bridge arcs across the pivotal decades of the twentieth century and spans the divisions of the American heart.
Memorial Bridge is the story of Sean Dillon, who escapes from the rough world of the Chicago stockyards to become an agent in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and then rises to the very top of military intelligence on the eve of its greatest challenge β and the nation's greatest failure. Dillon is an Irishman, a Catholic, a lawyer obsessed with justice, a man whose fierce integrity sets him apart even in his youth. As he advances, finally becoming an air force general charged with an impossible duty, he finds himself an outsider to everyone but Cass, the indomitable yet deeply feeling woman with whom he has built his life. She alone sees what his defiant adherence to principle is costing him.
In the final, gripping chain of events, Dillon's deepest loyalties to family and country are tested during the Vietnam War, when he must confront not only the man he has become, but also his son, who opposes the warβand Dillon's role in itβwith nothing less than the merciless conscience he has inherited from his father. Memorial Bridge is a rich, dramatic novel about one family's intimate and painful participation in America's coming of age, told with all the excitement and compassion we have come to expect from this master storyteller
The bestselling author of Mortal Friends has written an acclaimed new epic of one man's journey of conscience--from Depression-era Chicago through the Vietnam War. "Powerful . . . wonderfully written . . . carefully judicious about still-controversial topics."--The New York Times Book Review.