Carlo Reinhart returns home from service in occupied Germany and finds the postwar U.S. a different world: housing developments, gadget technology, a physical and spiritual malaise that boom times evoke.

Good-hearted and intelligent, sympathetic but cynical, Reinhart is a participant who nevertheless remains a spectator. This gives the story its piquancy. Imagine going full throttle for success, simultaneously riding the brakes in apprehension.

"Picture Fiedling's Tom Jones in a 20th century landscape and you'll have some idea of REINHART IN LOVE." (The New York Times)