Finished Man

"The thing is, the main thing, we can tell friends from enemies". Eerily prescient of very late twentieth-century politics, George Garrett's first novel unwinds a tale of losing one's soul and family to the "infernal demon" of elected office. Mike Royle, passionless and uncommitted, flees New York's gray winters, the dull routine of his law firm job, and the malaise of his recent divorce to return to his Florida hometown and work for longtime family friend Senator Allen Parker. Parker ("I'm just a politician who sometimes fancies himself to be a 'public servant'") shocks constituents by announcing his bid for another term -- after his protege and the Party's rising star John Batten has declared his own candidacy. When Mike's father, the hardscrabble success Judge Joseph Royle, also joins the race, a rabid course is set, and Mike -- saddled with both southern roots and a modern conscience -- stumbles toward the self-knowledge of a finished man.Garrett, George P. is the author of 'Finished Man' with ISBN 9780807126325 and ISBN 0807126322.