In his Afterword, Crowley explicitly theorizes that the period would strongly influence later civil movements in the United States: For most of them, and for many of the African American men and women, Hispanics, Native Americans, and people with disabilities who also served, the end of the war meant returning to the status quo ante: but things could never be restored just as they had been, and the war years contained the seeds of change that would eventually grow again.

While drafting plans for building an aeronautics plant, brothers Henry and Jules Van Damme are unable to justify removing workers from agrarian or armaments assembly support efforts for the War in Europe.

The novel's ending depicts a somewhat prosperous Ponca City near the bulldozed remains of Henryville, with a few rusting B-30 Pax Bombers left in the fields nearby.

[10] Along similar lines, in The Washington Post, Bill Sheehan posited that what makes Crowley unique as a novelist is not only his metaphoric detail, but the extremely high level of craft apparent in the work, especially with concern to historical accuracy.

[12] Robert Wiersema praised the novel as well, in a review for The Globe and Mail, enucleate that the novel is built on the state of Henryville being essentially of suspended judgement, allowing characters to speak of their most common humanity.