My Heart for Hostage (Critical Edition)

Robert Hillyer · Robert Nagle

Oct 2022 · Personville Press

About this ebook

Paris, 1919. A young American officer named Edward falls in love with a French girl named Germaine and tries to convince her to marry him. But Germaine keeps avoiding the question. Germaine is sweet and lovely, but also opinionated and immature. She's the perfect companion for Paris night life -- and a master at posing as different people and telling white lies that amuse and confuse her boyfriend. She's a poet ... or is she?  Is she too whimsical and crazy for a conventional-minded man like Edward? Or is Edward too narrow-minded? Maybe they are not really in love. Or maybe Edward's suspicions are ruining everything.   This beautiful and brooding novel explores the blossoming relationship and the doubts that threaten to derail it. Can they transform the initial spark into something more lasting? 

Described by New York Times as a "superbly written book, written perhaps as only a poet with and expert in the discipline of verse could write," this overlooked 1942 novel by Pulitzer-winning poet Robert Hillyer is now available as an ebook. This edition includes lots of bonus material: a long biographical portrait of the author, an examination of the novel's major themes, a discussion of the novel's ambiguities and parallels between the life of the protagonist and Hillyer himself (who volunteered for the  ambulance corps during WW1 and shared a Paris flat with novelist John Dos Passos). This edition also includes a sampling of poetry Hillyer wrote while living in Europe.   

My Heart for Hostage, wrote Brad Bigelow of Neglectedbooks.com, "... is perhaps the closest thing to a neglected masterpiece I’ve come across. I cannot recommend it too highly." It's a love story which combines the witty social commentary of an Oscar Wilde novel with the stylistic precision of Flaubert and the psychological realism of Edith Wharton or Henry James.  

About the author

ROBERT HILLYER (1895-1961) was a U.S. poet who published 15 books of poetry, 2 novels and 2 books of criticism. He volunteered with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France during World War 1 and worked as a diplomatic courier during the 1919 Paris peace conference  after the war. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1934. Born in New Jersey, he taught at Harvard University, Trinity College, Kenyon College and University of Delaware. He is known for his traditional approach to poetry, classical poetic forms, pastoral themes and a rejection of Modernist innovations like free verse. 

Robert Nagle is a fiction writer and literary critic living in Houston, Texas. He runs PERSONVILLE PRESS. His essay collection, NONCRAPPY THINGS FROM MY BLOG will be published in late 2023 (He has been running a literary blog for 21+ years). In 2022, he authored a critical study on Robert Hillyer's 1942 novel MY HEART FOR HOSTAGE. He occasionally publishes fiction under various pseudonyms. He writes a monthly web column, ROBERT'S ROUNDUP OF INDIE EBOOK DEALS which publicizes outstanding and affordable fiction being published today.