By Love Possessed

By Love Possessed, novel by James Gould Cozzens, published in 1957.

Between the time that an ornate French gilt clock inscribed “amor vincit omnia” strikes three o'clock one afternoon and its striking of four o'clock two days later, Arthur Winner, Jr., undergoes a series of crises and discoveries that force him to alter the view he takes of himself, the rational standards of his revered late father (in whose living room the clock is situated), and his world, centered on his well‐to‐do and well‐born family's community. During these trying 49 hours, Winner, a conservative lawyer, now about 50, is called on to defend Ralph Detwiler, the orphan son of family friends and the brother of his devoted spinster secretary, Helen. Although Ralph is corrupt, he is innocent of the crime of rape for which he has been arrested, and the prosecutor Garrett Hughes, an assistant district attorney, and Jerome Brophy, the district attorney who wants to be a judge, eager to have Winner's support for a judgeship, tacitly offer to drop the case. Winner believes his decision to back Hughes is impartial, but he does not bring himself to tell Helen of his knowledge that all will be well, and when Ralph jumps bail and leaves the state, his worshiping sister thinks his career is ruined and commits suicide. Meanwhile Winner is involved with the Detwiler family in another way because his firm serves as trustees in reestablishing the credit of the local bank from which Ralph and Helen's father has improperly diverted funds. In the course of this activity he finds that his senior partner, Noah Tuttle, who is also his father‐in‐law, has himself misused bank funds, even though he is accounted a pillar of decency in the community. This shock to Winner's values is compounded by circumstances that cause him to recall his passionate adultery during the time before he had come to find satisfying love and companionship in his second marriage. Through these experiences and memories Winner is moved out of his complacency to recognize in himself and others various kinds of love and disruptive passions.