Just in time for the centenary of the Great War of 1914-18 (World War I), the publication in English of Gabriel Chevallier’s novel “Le Peur” (1930) is drawing deserved attention. Translated by Malcolm Imrie as “Fear” and available in the handsome New York Review of Books Classics series, the novel is clearly infused with Chevallier’s personal experience as an infantryman in the French Army during the Great War. Presenting the life of a soldier through extended passages inscribing equally the physical and the psychological trauma not just of combat but also of waiting for combat, it is a novel of unblinking witness.

A recent stop at The Last Hurrah whiskey bar at the Parker House (now Omni Parker House) got me thinking about the classic novel it is named after, a personal favorite and one synonymous with the battling “boyos and Brahmins” of yesteryear. Even now, it the visage of “Himself” – James Michael Curley – that stands out at the bar among the images of famed congressman, senators, and other politicians then and now. It was that very face that inspired a struggling novelist named Edwin O’Connor as 1955 dawned 60 years ago.