The Return of Philo T. McGiffin
In this comic and irreverent novel, author and retired naval captain David Poyer--famous for such bestsellers as The Med, The Gulf, The Circle , The Passage, and other bestselling novels of the modern military--brilliantly re-creates the hothouse world of the U.S. Naval Academy.
Poyer's Philo T. McGiffin, arriving at Annapolis to find that he is burdened with the name of a legendary prankster from the class of 1882, attracts attention from the day he reports for Plebe Summer, and the upperclassmen soon make his life a living hell. Stoop-shouldered and meek, he seems an unlikely candidate to carry on the tradition of the original Philo, whose outrageous escapades had served as a symbol of subversive individualism to generations of midshipmen. At first Philo nearly buckles under from the strain, but gradually "The Mouse" learns to roar and ultimately to triumph in the grand style of his predecessor. Funny, touching, and enormously realistic, this madcap novel will bring back to everyone what it was like to be 17 . . . and in deep, deep trouble. . . .
Readers also enjoyed
David Poyer
DAVID POYER was born in DuBois, Pennsylvania in 1949. He grew up in Brockway, Emlenton, and Bradford, and graduated from Bradford Area High School in 1967. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1971, and later received a master’s degree from George Washington University.
His active and reserve naval service included sea duty in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific, and shore duty at the Pentagon, Fleet Training Center, Surface Warfare Development Group, Joint Forces Command, and in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He retired from the Joint Forces Command as a captain, with the Defense Superior Service Medal as his highest award.
Poyer has taught or lectured at Annapolis, Flagler College, University of Pittsburgh, Old Dominion University, the Armed Forces Staff College, the University of North Florida, Christopher Newport University, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, and other institutions. He has been a guest on PBS’s “Writer to Writer” series and on Voice of America, and has appeared at the Southern Festival of Books and many other literary events. He taught for sixteen years in the Maslow MA/MFA in Creative Writing faculty at Wilkes University. He’s currently a fellow at the Virginia Center of Creative Arts and teaches at the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat. He lives on Virginia’s Eastern Shore with novelist Lenore Hart.

