"A richly colorful novel ... and life collides with everyone's hopes and ideals in ways that Mr. Ford endows with freshness and surprise."—New York Times Book Review

In the words of the New Hampshire statute, "now comes Theodora" to file for divorce from Colin, who prefers to march for world peace than stay home with his pregnant wife. She and the baby take refuge with Boris, photographer of nudes, who in all innocence finds himself in love for the first time in his life. Daniel Ford's debut novel is a fascinating cameo of university life in the 1960s—before Woodstock, before Vietnam, but not before student rebels.

"It is impossible not to keep on watching them, simply because they are so human and so young and selfish and opinionated and anxious … The clear-sighted, unangry Mr. Ford will undoubtedly write another novel, which means we all have something to look forward to."—The New Yorker

Daniel Ford was educated by the University of New Hampshire and the U.S. Army. Afterward, he worked as a reporter while writing fiction in off moments-often enough, riding a train through Germany to cover a court-martial for The Overseas Weekly. Incident at Muc Wa came out of an assignment in South Vietnam. Doubleday published the novel in 1967, when there still was light at the end of the tunnel. Today, Ford writes about the planes, pilots, and politics of World War II and the Cold War. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Britain, Stern Foundation grantee in Vietnam, Verville Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, and Resident Scholar at the University of New Hampshire. At the age of 68, he flies a Piper Cub almost as old as he is.