Answer as a man - Taylor Caldwell

The crowning achievement of America's most beloved storyteller...

The powerful odyssey of a man of passionate principles in a decadent age...

A valiant man, haunted by forbidden yearnings. An innocent Pennsylvania town, under siege by the forces of corruption. A widening net of scandal and tragedy, threatening both the good and the evil alike.

Out of these dramatic elements, Taylor Caldwell has created a new work of consummate humanity and towering emotion. Answer as a Man chronicles the tempestuous rise of Jason Garrity from impoverished Irish-Catholic roots to the zenith of Yankee prestige and power. It tells, too, of the painful price of success and of decency, as Jason is forced by his own principles into a union of lovelessness and deception.

It is the first decade of the twentieth century, and America booms with new energy even as it moves inexorably toward the nightmare of World War I.

This spirit of expansive decadence invades the provincial town of Belleville, Pennsylvania, as a magnificent pleasure-dome of a resort hotel rises against the sloping hills. The dream and glory of Jason Garrity, Ipswich House too soon becomes the pawn of cynical and dangerous elements, dedicated to wresting control from the man whose vision fueled their fortunes. Driven by the unyielding struggle to resist the corruption of his hotel, his town and his own troubled life, Jason is assaulted by the twin agonies of personal disgrace and intimate betrayal.

As his marriage to the vain and duplicitous Patricia becomes the object of scorn and scandal; as he worships a woman who can never be his; as he sees cruelty prevail over kindness and greed over generosity; as the curse of his grief-shadowed past lives on in his children, Jason is taxed to the limit of his trust in God and in human justice.

Rich in character as it is in drama, deeply moving as it is always compelling, Answer as a Man is both a powerful moral testament and a great saga of love, both carnal and divine, of the meaning of faith and of the ecstasy of redemption. Here is the spectacular Taylor Caldwell well at the pinnacle of her powers, in a novel to stand proudly beside Bright Flows the River, Testimony of Two Men, and Captains and the Kings.