In such later novels as Melville Goodwin, USA and Sincerely, Willis Wayde (1955), Marquand continues to direct his satire at the predicaments of characters caught up in forces that result from both social and professional environments.

In Melville Goodwin, USA, Marquand returns to the post-World War II setting that forms the frame in Point of No Return. General Goodwin's narration of his life as he is interviewed for a cover story for a news magazine occurs just on the eve of his reassignment from the occupation army in Germany. The novel's narrator, newscaster Sidney Skelton, is also at a crucial point: only by adopting Goodwin's militaristic techniques can he thwart Gilbert Frary's machinations to replace him with a newsman who is willing to speak his own commercials. His reservations about the emptiness of a job which uses nothing of his mind and talents beyond his voice and...