Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy, #3)

by Ken Follett

Marriage is a promise. You can’t keep a promise only when it suits you. You have to keep it against your inclination. That’s what it means.”

Marriage

The irony was striking. For as long as he could remember, George had been wounded and infuriated by the repeated message, sometimes implicit but often spoken aloud, that he was inferior. It made no difference that he was smarter than 99 percent of white Americans. Nor that he was hardworking, polite, and well dressed. He was looked down upon by ugly white people too stupid or too lazy to do anything harder than pour drinks or pump gas. He could not walk into a department store, sit down in a restaurant, or apply for a job without wondering whether he would be ignored, asked to leave, or rejected because of his color. It made him burn with resentment.

Racism

Tanya went to the cupboard and pulled out a large cardboard box full of dry cat food.

Cat food soviet union 1961

blue jeans

Blue jeans in USSR 1961

showed how the entire planet was a chess board for the two superpowers.

Someone whose promises are worthless has a disabled soul.”