This is my second favorite Saroyan book, after "The Human Comedy". It is the story of young Wesley Jackson and his life as it unfolds through becoming a soldier during WWII, going overseas and attempting to fight a horrible war while remaining a young man in love with the world and his wife and unborn children, whom he has yet to meet. This may be where I was inspired to name my first son Ben, after a character in the book (Joe Foxhall) who writes a poem to his unborn son, Ben, and whose name is his last word when he is killed in combat. A powerful and human book. ( )