Mentored by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis and published under the renowned Scribner editor Maxwell Perkins, Thomas Boyd attained only modest success as a novelist and biographer. He is known most widely for his World War I novel Through the Wheat, which critics, praising its realistic depiction of war and battle, compared to the Red Badge of Courage. How does a writer like Boyd, with his prominent literary friends, political ideals, professional...