Saroyan's writing style seems a bit undeveloped. The plot, with the family and town dealing with the war, was interesting, but Saroyan's answer to life, which is woven through the story through the lives of several of the characters, was just wrong. He believes that men are all essentially good and that each of us lives in all of us so that death is just part of life as long as somebody remembers. At the end of the book, when Marcus dies, his family just shrugs and accepts Tobey in his place.