It always surprises me that no one every really knows about this novel by Harold Frederic. Maybe I’ve just failed to appreciate the extent to which good old Morty Adler’s Great Book’s program actually succeeded in building up an artifical cannon of “classic” literature–being off the list relegates a book to obscurity as much as being on the list makes it the (well-known) bane of every schoolchild’s existence. But I guess Frederic comes off as too American-provincial to have made the cut. Regardless, I’ve always had a rather bittersweet fondness for this novel. I haven’t read this book in several years, but I feel like perhaps I owe it to myself to read it more often. I think we’ve all got a bit of Theron Ware in us, some of us more than others.