War and peace, love and death, romance and betrayal, these are the crucial questions confronted by the men and women of the Greatest Generation in this novel of four people and their interweaving stories, connected by the forces that enrapture us all during the hardscrabble days of the Great Depression and the vital battles of World War II, from the Appalachian countryside where Coal is King to the nightclubs, racetracks, and cabin cruisers of the high life. Young Andy Petrovich dreams of escaping the struggles of the company patch only to be sent sailing to Russia on board the USS Ruby. Peggy LaStoria finds the fire to her vibrant, vivacious womanhood in the arms of Rings Romano. Gerry LaStoria crosses the country in the Superchief to a wartime honeymoon in Balboa Park with the only man who’s ever kissed her. And their brother, Augie LaStoria, tested by the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach, survives the crucible of hand-to-hand combat only to confront the existential landscape of postwar America, never knowing his final destination will be a city on a hill.

The Heart of the Century is Volume 3 of Eugene Christy’s monumental saga of three generations of an American immigrant family. Watch for the final two volumes of The Twentieth Century Quintet coming soon from Adelaide Books in 2021.