What Will People Say? a Novel

Lieutenant Harvey Forbes has survived the Philippines, but Fifth Avenue may be the battle he cannot win. Just returned from war, he finds himself more disoriented by the parade of elegant women streaming past him than by any gunfire he endured. One woman in particular, glimpsed only through the architecture of her hat and the precise line of her coat, commandeers his imagination entirely. What follows is his increasingly frantic quest to discover her identity, conducted through the glittering, treacherous waters of Manhattan high society. Rupert Hughes, writing with sharp eye and wry humor, uses Forbes's pursuit not as simple romance but as portal into the anxieties of a new century. What does a soldier become when the war is over but the real battle is just beginning? The question of what people will say hangs over every interaction, every calculated glance, every attempt to prove he belongs among men who have never known violence. The novel pivots between comedy and genuine longing, its hero both ridiculous and utterly recognizable.