SOURCE: Neely, Jessica. “Personal Allegiances.” Belles Lettres 7, no. 2 (winter 1991-92): 11-12.

In the following essay, Neely elucidates the social and political issues found in The Night Travellers and Jack of Diamonds.

Everything about Elizabeth Spencer's new novel, The Night Travellers, gives us cause for self-reflection. The red, white, and blue jacket cover appears from a distance to depict a wind-furled American flag. Reading the novel on the Washington, D.C. Metro, I caught people glancing curiously. Something patriotic? What new book is that? I immediately became self-conscious: This is not a hawkish book, I wanted to say. It's not an “instant” or hyped-up war romance, fast on the heels of Desert Storm. If you look closely, you will discover that the flag isn't ruffled, it is covering—indeed smothering—a young man and woman in profile, his arms around her. But of course, no one asked.

An engrossing...