The Broken Place, is a novel by Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara was an American writer of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers University in 1951, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division...

, the author of The Killer Angels

The Killer Angels

The Killer Angels is a historical novel by Michael Shaara that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The book tells the story of four days of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War: June 30, 1863, as the troops of both the Union and the Confederacy move into battle around...

, For Love of the Game

For Love of the Game

For Love of the Game is a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Shaara, published posthumously in 1991. The book tells the story of fictional baseball great Billy Chapel, thirty-seven years old and nearing the end of his career.-Plot summary:...

, and The Noah Conspiracy

The Noah Conspiracy

The Noah Conspiracy is a 1981 novel by Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels and For Love of the Game, first published as The Herald...

. It was published by the New American Library

New American Library

New American Library is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948; it produced affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works, as well as popular, pulp, and "hard-boiled" fiction. Non-fiction, original, and hardcopy issues were also produced.Victor Weybright and Kurt...

 in 1968.

Plot

The plot concerns a Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 veteran who comes home from the war mentally depressed. With deep psychological wounds, he only feels alive in the violent world of boxing

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

. Shaara had been an amateur boxer.

Criticism

"While critics admired the style and the content of the book, it was a commercial disappointment. Though hit hard by the lack of public interest in The Broken Place, Michael's drive to write continued." - http://jeffshaara.com/michaelbio.html

• criticism by Alibris