A Pride of Place

This is William P. McGivern’s finest novel, a critical but sympathetic story of a community of wealthy families, and their reactions to the new conditions imposed on them by the changing order in America. It is a disturbing and thoughtful book; for in this bitter trial of strength between old and new values, it becomes dramatically apparent that in stubbornness and prejudice and passion lie the seeds of destruction for both worlds.

With insight and compassion, Mr. McGivern traces a year of painful change in the life of Ford Johnson, encompassing in that span his re-evaluations of his family and friends, and, most crucially, his feelings for the young girl named Maria, who has disturbed the calm of his life as a wild duck breaks the water of a still pond.

The setting of the novel is the Downs, a stretch of rolling countryside in Pennsylvania, where Ford Johnson’s great-grandfather had put down the family roots. And the people of the Downs face the resentment and hostility of the world around them with mingled reactions. There is the bitter determination of the powerful Poston and Marshall clans to fight back with any weapon at hand; there are voices of dismay and voices of anguish raised in this conflict; and through it all sounds the cry of Ford’s lonely heart for peace with his God and family, and a peace for his restless soul that he hasn’t found in the arms of the girl named Maria.