The Promise of Light is a joltingly authentic literary adventure by Paul Watkins, a brilliant young novelist The Philadelphia Inquirer has called "the presumptive heir to the Hemingway/Mailer/Crane/Remarque war-chronicling Mantle of Genius." The year is 1921. Ben Sheridan, the son of an Irish immigrant, is about to grab his share of the American dream. He takes a job at a bank to escape the sleepy Rhode Island backwater where he grew up, but even...