Wright Morris has had one of the most productive and enduring careers of any American novelist, winning wide praise for his nineteen novels over the past thirty-five years. His work became progressively better for almost twenty years, reaching its high point with Ceremony in Lone Tree in 1960. Few American novelists have written so well in the late stages of their careers, and few have been so American in their work. Morris has concentrated on Nebraska and California but has written about all parts of the nation, examining the manners and mores of his countrymen in all periods from the 1920s to the Vietnam era. He has been concerned from the beginning with defining the American character, with the hold of America's past on its citizens, and with the promise offered by the American dream. He depicts the inability of many Americans to feel, to deal honestly with emotions...