Pulitzer Prize Fiction Winner
Guard of Honor
by James Gould Cozzens
Summary
Compressed into three days at an Army Air Forces base in wartime Florida, the novel traces a cascade of small crises, an aviation mishap, a racial incident, bureaucratic infighting, that test the base's senior commander and his staff. Cozzens favors dense, ironic prose and a wide ensemble, treating war as a sprawling administrative problem rather than a battlefield epic. Critics have long admired its formal control and clear eyed view of institutional life under pressure.
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Historical Context & Significance
Critics often cite it as the most technically perfect American war novel, focusing on the management of war rather than just the combat.