Set in Eisenhower-era Chicago, An Unfinished Season brilliantly evokes a city, an epoch, and a shift in ideals through the closely observed story o...
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May 07, 2008
I was slow getting into this, in part because of style. A paragraph can last a couple pages (in one case, a chapter’s length); at times I found myself drifting into Editorial Mind, imagining where I would break it. Also, the author doesn’t set off dialogue with quotation marks, so it can be an effort to differentiate it from other text. But my larger problem was that the first half of the book felt like it was populated with male “types”--the taciturn father, the salty guys in the newsroom, etc.
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Aug 21, 2011
Tony
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Just, Ward. AN UNFINISHED SEASON. (2004). ****.
Just is one of those writers who makes sure that he has exactly the right word for what he is trying to tell the reader about. In this novel, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, Just tells the story of Wilson (Wils) Ravan, a nineteen-year-old young man who lives in a Chicago suburb called Quarterway. Wils has just completed high school and plans to move on to the University of Chicago. The summer of that year, a year in early 195 More...
Just is one of those writers who makes sure that he has exactly the right word for what he is trying to tell the reader about. In this novel, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, Just tells the story of Wilson (Wils) Ravan, a nineteen-year-old young man who lives in a Chicago suburb called Quarterway. Wils has just completed high school and plans to move on to the University of Chicago. The summer of that year, a year in early 195 More...
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Mar 12, 2011
Lauren
rated it: 
Set in 1950s Chicago (and its environs), this is a coming-of-age tale that hints at being something great but instead falls into worn-out plotlines (in the past year, I can recall reading at least two other novels with similar plots and resolutions). The story of nineteen-year-old Wils Ravan hits the ground running with a unique style and a plot and setting interwoven so as to suggest a richly nuanced story. The promising start, however, gives way to drawn-out introspection and wisps of somethin
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Feb 05, 2009
Just, a highly respected novelist, playwright, and former reporter (Echo House, A Soldier of the Revolution, A Dangerous Friend_), has been praised for his astute sociological and psychological insights. In An Unfinished Season, he tears away the layers of false memory attached to the 1950s and reminds readers what a turbulent decade really felt like. Wils is more than the star of a complex coming-of-age story; Season elegantly chronicles his relationship with his family and the larger, complex
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Dec 09, 2011
Susan
rated it: 
“An Unfinished Season” is the third of what Just calls his “Illinois cycle” of novels. Published in 2004, it was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.
Set in the Eisenhower/McCarthy Era years (Adlai Stevenson and Marlon Brando make cameo appearances), first-person narrator Wils lives with his mother and father in Quarterday, Ill., in the same direction from Chicago and the opulent North Shore suburbs as the real Half Day, Ill. Even though he is decidedly middle class, Wils has attende More...
Set in the Eisenhower/McCarthy Era years (Adlai Stevenson and Marlon Brando make cameo appearances), first-person narrator Wils lives with his mother and father in Quarterday, Ill., in the same direction from Chicago and the opulent North Shore suburbs as the real Half Day, Ill. Even though he is decidedly middle class, Wils has attende More...
Aug 05, 2009
Marvin
rated it:
This is one of those books that's probably very good but just didn't capture my imagination. It's about the experiences of a young man in the summer before he goes off to college (at the University of Chicago). He's from a wealthy family & spends many an evening at debutante parties, but at the same time he has to confront some of life's harsher realities. Early on, there's a good deal of talk about the character of the Midwest (he lives with his parents on a golf course out beyond the exclusive
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Jan 11, 2010
Walter
rated it:
I enjoyed this novel – I wasn’t sure I was going to like it at first. The narrator’s young, nineteen, a boy coming of age in one of Chicago’s wealthier suburbs in the 1950s. Initially I worried the novel was going to be a Midwestern take on Fitzgerald, but it turned out to be more original than that. My favorite part of the book wasn’t the plot--this is a coming-of-age novel--but the style. There are no quotations throughout which could be confusing. However, the author uses the lack of int
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Dec 16, 2009
David
rated it:
A story of a young man coming of age, caught in between worlds, incapable of using quotation marks.
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Mar 01, 2011
Jean
rated it: 
An atmospheric tale of 1950's Chicago. You can smell the summer air of downtown and hear the bands playing at the debutante parties. The lack of punctuation on the dialog seemed strange but was not difficult to get used to for me. This was a coming of age/turning point story of a time in life when we leave the predictable albeit boring confines of home and face adult realities as they interrupt what we thought we knew or had under control.
I thought this an easy read, and enjoyed t More...
I thought this an easy read, and enjoyed t More...
Nov 02, 2008
Mark
rated it:
It has been many years since I have read a novel of this greatness. Ward Just could be compared to some of the greatest...F.Scott Fitzgerald, D. H. Lawrence, Graham Green, just to name a few. Just is extraordinary at capturing a vocabulary that takes you into his story where you feel intimately involved with his characters. The Unfinished Season gives you a masterful look at what deb parties and the high society looks like in the early 1900's Chicago. The main character Wils is 19 years old,
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Jul 27, 2008
Sarah
rated it:
Beautiful. Don't just take my word for it:
Our protagonist at the Art Institute:
"I imagined each canvas as a miniature civilization, living cities resting on dead ones, and somewhere in the brushstrokes were graveyards and sunshine as far as the eye could see. I was drawn to this Impressionist world, its appetite and sensuality, moments profoundly incomplete, beyond reach, filled with grief."
And re: the string of debutante balls along Chicago's tony Nort More...
Our protagonist at the Art Institute:
"I imagined each canvas as a miniature civilization, living cities resting on dead ones, and somewhere in the brushstrokes were graveyards and sunshine as far as the eye could see. I was drawn to this Impressionist world, its appetite and sensuality, moments profoundly incomplete, beyond reach, filled with grief."
And re: the string of debutante balls along Chicago's tony Nort More...
Sep 27, 2008
Nancy
rated it:
An Unfinished Season happens during Eisenhower's time in the White House and the communist scare - prior to the riotous times of the 60's. The setting is Chicago and the characters all live in the world of debutants and country clubs. The story is told by Wils, an only child just prior to his going off to college. He gets involved with a girl also headed off to an expensive University and all the drama that comes with the social scenes of the young living in a pampered reality. The story seemed
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Jun 28, 2008
Gregg
rated it:
Ward Just’s account of the coming of age of Wils Ravan, a young well-to-do man in Chicago in the 1950s wouldn’t sound like something that would particularly interest me. It took a long time for me to get going with this book, owing mainly to my drowsing off after 3 pages when I would pick it up just before bed.
But a conveniently timed trip to Atlanta gave me the good solid chunk of hours needed to get going, and once I got passed the narrator’s initial account of his family life and to More...
But a conveniently timed trip to Atlanta gave me the good solid chunk of hours needed to get going, and once I got passed the narrator’s initial account of his family life and to More...
Oct 23, 2009
Louis
rated it:
It bothered me that Ward Just didn't use commonly accepted punctuation. Took a while to get used to it. My biggest problem with the story was that the main character was very unlikable. I appreciated the auxiliary characters but Wils was a self absorbed teenager. Maybe that's the point. Anyway for those reasons I would not recommend this book or the author.
Jun 27, 2010
Sherelyn
rated it:
Ward Just writes well, but I just couldn't get into this story of a privileged country club summer in Michigan. Insights did not seem all that insightful and characters, although started in an interesting way, never seemed to develop to the point that I cared. A friend liked it a lot better than I did, though.
Jan 18, 2008
Jackie
rated it:
A dark and disturbing commentary on family life in the 50’s, this fictionalized account of a prosperous North Shore family in Illinois is compelling and thought-provoking. With the 19-year-old Wils going off to the University of Chicago in the fall, his family as it once was known is unraveling around him. His father is business is in turmoil as unions, McCarthyism and a unsettled economy threaten his livelihood. His mother is physically present, but her mind is often elsewhere. When tragedy s
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Oct 02, 2010
Susan
rated it:
This book was an intersting look at the Chicago upper crust in the 50's. The characters were well drawn and the book caught the feelings of a first love very well. Reminded me a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels and The Catcher in the Rye.
Nov 09, 2009
Lobstergirl
rated it:
What is it with Ward Just? The blurbs could not be more complimentary. Blurbists found this book splendid, stunning, witty, sophisticated, elegant, beautifully languid, powerfully evocative, ravishingly atmospheric (the blurbists are always calling Just atmospheric). It was a Pulitzer finalist. For me, it was quite dull. Like the last Just I read, it feels very dated (the setting is Eisenhower era Chicago). Jazz is listened to and ice clinks in cocktails. None of the characters are remote
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Jan 14, 2009
Lori
rated it:
Vivid, beautiful writing guides the reader through the life of Wils Ravan, a young society man as he experiences life in Chicago at the age of 19. Wonderfully deliberate word choice brings this story to life.
Sep 19, 2011
Marty
rated it:
Spare and introspective; a character study that finally gets off the ground in the middle, when Wils, the protagonist, finally has witty conversation with Aurora, his debutante party pick-up. This is a coming-of-age story set in a time that is now hard to relate, when dads teach their sons to drink (heavily, it seems) and boys becoming men are highly aware of the nuances of everything from career choices to their mother's fits of redecorating.
Sep 06, 2007
Scott
rated it:
This was an excellent coming of age novel set in Eisenhower-Era Chicago. 19 yo Wils is dealing in three different areans in his summer before attending college at the University of Chicago, my alma mater. He works at a newspaper, he attends North Shore debutante parties, and the holelife that finds his parents battling.
This was my first Ward Just novel. This will not be my last. While the story drew me in quickly and allowed me to dance through the various scenes, there were time More...
This was my first Ward Just novel. This will not be my last. While the story drew me in quickly and allowed me to dance through the various scenes, there were time More...
Sep 16, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
Interesting references to Chicago, but story felt a bit too rushed at the end.
Aug 14, 2011
Ooh! This is going to make me want to move to Chicago again, isn't it?!
Dec 15, 2008
Deale
rated it:
Why did I like this book? I don't really know..not my type of story really. The story of a young rather wealthy boy's passage into adulthood. The pace was slow, and, yet, I enjoyed it. You observe 'Wils'observing his parents,life ,and his girlfriend all through the eyes of this unaware boy. He maintains a strange distance despite or because of the family wealth and privilege. And, yet he is sympathetic. The character development is good, and perhaps no matter our financial status, we are (or
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Jun 25, 2008
Chris
rated it:
While this book held my interest I was not hanging on the edge of my seat to read what would happen next. I thought it was a rather predictable tale recounting a young man's (Wils Ravan) summer between high school and college during the mid-1950's when he is an errand boy at a scandal-type newspaper during the day and an upper class socialite at night. The story takes place in Chicago, so that part was of interest to me but the story itself was kind of boring.
