Point of No Return

I loved this book. Published in 1947, and contemporary at the time, at this point it almost qualifies as a historical novel. Charley Gray, a hard-working assistant vice-president at a small but tony New York bank, is twisting in the wind waiting for news about whether he, or a presumed rival, will......more

I first read this in a high school class 40+ years ago. I loved it then, so I recently looked for it at the library to see if I still would like it. I did, very much. I love novels like this, and wish I could find more. If you like John O'Hara and Louis Auchincloss (two of my other favorite authors)......more

Annoyed by the amused detachment of the observers in When Prophecy Fails and Doomsday Cult? Strike back by reading this: Charles Gray has a solid job in a solid bank in New York in the solid post-war years, being passively pushed forward by his ambitious wife, when he has a chance encounter with a s......more

John P. Marquand, once among the most popular novelists in America, is now virtually unknown.  Reading Point of No Return,his novel of middle-to-upper class manners in a small New England town, it’s hard to see why.  The high-brow critics of his era never had any use for him but the public adored h......more

woof-woof How come nobody remembers J.P. Marquand anymore ? At his best, he produced some of 20th century America's great fiction. POINT OF NO RETURN is perhaps his greatest novel and surely one of the "great American novels", up there with "An American Tragedy" by Dreiser, Warren's "All the King's M......more