George Evans

In the novel George Evans, the title character and his friend Charles Fletcher both aspire to live the alluring life of an international banker in 1960s London. Told in the form of a conversation between George and another old friend, this novel recounts the dual quest of George and Charles. Their story begins outside the London offices of Thomson Guthrie, an American private bank. They take an immediate liking to each other over lunch. Charles is merely passing through London, though, and soon returns to New York to begin his banking career. The two friends are briefly reunited when Charles takes a job at Thomson Guthrie in London, but are separated again when Charles returns to New York. After the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and the boom in shipping created by the Arab-Israeli war, Thomson Guthrie decides it needs a shipping division, and appoints Charles and George to run it. Because Thomson Guthrie is an American bank, Charles is named head and George is his number two. It is George, however, who has a better understanding of banking and keeps Thomson Guthrie from losing money. George begins to resent Charles until one night when Charles quotes advice from his father: The worst thing that anyone can do is to spend his life doing something he does not want to do. Interpreting this as a personal statement, George decides to give Charles life more meaning. Through love affairs, familial connections, and a changing banking industry, George and Charles remain friends.