Thomas Boyd’s In Time of Peace was first published in 1935 and was reissued this year by Rvive books. It tells the story of  Hicks, a young man who comes home from the horrors of World War One only to find an even more daunting battle faces him at home: the struggle for body and soul amidst the materialism, corruption, and oppression of 1920s America.   The gap between the prosperous and the impoverished increases, workers struggle for control over their production, politicians wheedle for votes, journalists pander to advertisers and financial backers with political and social agendas, factory owners twist favors from towns, the police run riot over rights, and speculation in savings and loans soars.  Does this all sound familiar?  Hicks’ struggle to find and keep a job, stay aligned to his moral values, provide for his family, and hold onto his dreams of a better life will resonate with most everyone, and his desperate efforts to keep his head above water, his soul intact, and his dreams alive will cut close to the heart.

As compelling as the plot of In Time of Peace is, the characters themselves are almost two-dimensional; not quite flat, they nevertheless fail to materialize as blood and bone people.  The most affecting parts of the novel are not the relationships between the characters and their varied approach to escaping poverty and finding security, but rather Boyd’s very vivid and yet matter-of-fact descriptions of the humility wrought upon by them by poverty, by insecurity, and by their dis-empowerment at the hands of the government and big business.  As readers, we all know what is coming down the pike in the form of the Depression, and we ache for them, knowing that their problems are only going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Those few characters in the novel who possess both hindsight and foresight, for example the neighbor Rofer who is constantly challenging Hicks on his simplistic views of workers’ rights, unions, and economics (and I believe is the voice of Boyd himself) understand that the only thing that will lift the country from its problems is going to war and creating a new economy, new industry, and new markets worldwide for the American dream. In Time of Peace is the story of why times of peace don’t last long, and holds out a promise that only empowerment of the people — of the workers, from whose ranks most of the soldiers are drawn — can  bring about a lasting era of peace.  Socialist propaganda or truth? It is for the reader to decide.