A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [0]
dedicated to my oldest and dearest friend,
HARRY KOFSKY.
Special thanks to my researcher, MARILYNNE PYSHER,
and my assistant, JEANNE RANDALL.
Man is a god in ruins…. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, NATURE
Contents
Epigraph
Part One
Chapter 1
A Catholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to…
Chapter 2
Their honeymoon became a sort of pioneer epic. Daniel O’Connell…
Chapter 3
The banker’s chair from the turn of the century was…
Chapter 4
Yes, it’s your president, Thornton Tomtree. A year ago I…
Chapter 5
Henry Tomtree’s junkyard occupied a full block in a semi…
Chapter 6
Quinn, I told myself, keep it simple. Literature is not…
Chapter 7
It is nearly three o’clock. Nothing makes time pass more…
Chapter 8
The nun, Sister Donna, set the little boy down at…
Chapter 9
It was mud season. The tracks and washboard of the…
Chapter 10
The result of maternal rage happened fast. When Siobhan left…
Chapter 11
Greer Little was a lover whose mind never strayed far…
Chapter 12
It had been a long time since Carlos Martinez had…
Chapter 13
The personal greening of Thornton Tomtree began with spring’s warm…
Chapter 14
Throughout the history of the republic, military mavericks have popped…
Chapter 15
“Jeremiah Duncan here,” Duncan growled.
Chapter 16
Aboard the C–5 each member of the Recreation and Morale…
Chapter 17
It was a rare non-dank day. A kiss of…
Chapter 18
Quinn spent a restful night, the sleep of the reprieved….
Part Two
Chapter 19
Oh, what a glorious valley. It echoed in a sound…
Chapter 20
Events, both sorrowful and joyous, befell Troublesome Mesa. Father Sean…
Chapter 21
Bloody secrets! Bloody lies! The church, the ranch, his parents,…
Chapter 22
It was still four hours to midnight. The party was…
Chapter 23
State Senate Minority Leader Quinn Patrick O’Connell braked the Sno-Cat…
Chapter 24
AMERIGUN was a show dog with a single trick, the…
Chapter 25
Governor O’Connell stood as a lone pine in a burned-out…
Chapter 26
“Governor’s office,” Marsha sang.
Chapter 27
“Hee-Haw!”
Chapter 28
The governor and his family snuggled into a booth at…
Chapter 29
“Yuck!” Quinn said, smacking his lips together. He unscrambled…
Chapter 30
“We take you now to our Denver affiliate. Don, are…
Part Three
Chapter 31
From the get-go Thornton invoked a formal operation of…
Chapter 32
The free-trade zone at Colon was a long hour’s…
Chapter 33
Hosanna Corner in the godforsaken outskirts of godforsaken Lubbock…
Chapter 34
What was it that annoyed President Tomtree about Labor Day?…
Chapter 35
The worst part of this job, Maud Traynor thought, was…
Chapter 36
Red Peterson groped, caressed, patted his wife’s backside, then hopped…
Chapter 37
Sun’s first rays slithered over the rocky bivouac as the…
Chapter 38
Air Force One moved to South Weymouth so that its…
Chapter 39
“Hey, good-looking, how about buying a girl a drink?”
Chapter 40
If tears had been stars, there would have been enough…
Chapter 41
When it was apparent that Governor O’Connell was going to…
Chapter 42
At the last moment Greer decided she needed Rae O’Connell…
Chapter 43
On this day the grand repository of human existence and…
Chapter 44
After the debate the ground shifted, radically. The Tomtree campaign…
Chapter 45
In the mid-twenties after Lenin died, Stalin took power….
Chapter 46
Balancing a bucket of ice and a bottle of vodka…
Chapter 47
Marine Corps Helicopter Number One swayed from its Camp David…
Chapter 48
“I’ve never seen anyone with the will to equal Siobhan’s,”…
About the Author
By Leon Uris
Praise for A God in Ruins
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part One
Chapter 1
TROUBLESOME MESA, COLORADO
AUTUMN 2008
A Catholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to forget the day he first learned that he was born Jewish. It would not have been that bombastic an event, except that I am running for the presidency of the United States. The 2008