Details
Synopsis
A study of the literary scholar whose promising career was virtually ended by revelations of his homosexuality during the 1950s. Newton Arvin, of Smith College, first faced censure during the red scare of the '50s for his leftist politics. After that, he became the target of attacks because of his sexuality, and was eventually arrested for possession of pornography. The shame he felt about that and the guilt he felt for betraying friends resulted in his institutionalizing himself. Werth examines what he sees as a puritanical, moralizing strain in American life and the harm it does to citizens whose private lives become matters of public censure.
| Size | | Length: | 325 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 22.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"Barry Werth has told this gifted but unhappy man's story with sympathy but utterly without sentimentality or special pleading. His research, which seems to have been done primarily in Arvin's diaries and unpublished memoir, is thorough and sometimes surprising....Werth writes about Arvin's sexual torments with refreshing and instructive dispassion, and eschews any temptation to turn Arvin's story into gay-rights propaganda. He understands that it is quite enough -- indeed, it is all that really matters -- to tell it as a human story, about a man who was denied happiness by his sexual nature, his private character and the society in which he lived. "
Washington Post Book World - Johathan Yardley (04/15/2001)
"THE SCARLET PROFESSOR manifests precisely the traits that Arvin's literary biographies did: acute insight, deep compassion and an utter respect for language. I cannot recall a book of non-fiction in the decade since Verlyn Klinkenborg's THE LAST FINE TIME that has demonstrated such mastery of the craft, sentence by meticulously wrought sentence."
Chicago Tribune Books - Samuel G. Freedman (06/03/2001)
"Unfortunately, inside of a carapace it is rarely picturesque, and in this lively, well-researched but shamefully footnoteless biography, Werth...takes the reader rather deep inside Arvin's shell. The reader is often in the awkward position of pitying Arvin without being able to summon up the emotional wherewithal to like him. ....But in the history of sex and intellectual life in America, Arvin's is a fascinating chapter."
New York Times Book Review - Caleb Crain (08/05/2001)
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
All rights reserved.
