My own contention is that the works set in America are, in fact, exceptionally significant in revealing the true Julien Green through his fiction. This belief is based in large part upon the author's stressing the age twenty in his life—the age he reached during his first stay in America from 1919 to 1922—as that point at which he attained his definitive character….

There are two general areas in which the frustrations of Green's American characters are primarily a reflection of problems in his own life: the matter of "belonging," particularly in the sense of nationality, and that of personal morality. Each of these has its complexities in Green's life. Not only does he feel somewhat divided between France and America, but as far as the "American" side of him is concerned, there is the additional problem of political loyalties within that country—that is, to the South...