World's End

Finished World's End, Upton Sinclair's first book in his Lanny Budd series. Last year I read the third book, Dragon's Teeth, as part of my chronological Pulitzer project and loved it. When I finished I was eager to know more about Lanny and how he came to be the man he is in book three.

This first book tells how the three boyhood friends, Lanny (American), Kurt (German), and Rick (British) meet and struggle to maintain their friendship in face of war and shifting loyalties. Lanny's story begins when he is thirteen in 1913 and continues through World War I and into the League of Nations negotiations, in which Lanny plays a minor role. Throughout we meet famous figures like George Bernard Shaw, Isadora Duncan, Woodrow Wilson, George Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. Lanny finds himself pulled into behind the scenes intrigues with Bolsheviks and spies, some closer to home than he expects.