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The Searching Light
'This is a novel about an American university caught up in a political witch-hunt. The author portrays the inner conflicts, the desperate struggles that individuals experience as they lose or find their personal courage in a time of crisis for which they are unprepared. It is also a novel of the everyday life of the men and women who teach at Penfield University, and it sympathetically portrays the effect of the crisis on their family and social relationships.
The principal character is Professor John Minot, chairman of the English Department who together with his family, is the centre of the personal and moral struggle at the university. Minot is a scholar, a man of innocence and integrity who, when he refuses to take the loyalty oath, finds his whole world threatened.
The Searching Light is a novel of major importance, not only for its general literary excellence, its living characterizations and exciting narrative pace, but because it illuminates one of the central problems of our time. The story it tells of the crisis at Penfield is not isolated; it is being repeated every day throughout the United States.
Albert Einstein, who read the manuscript of this novel shortly before his death, said of it: "I have read the novel with great interest. Your description of persons and circumstances is very convincing indeed. It deserves the appreciation of every honest person that you have shed light on the whole morbid and fantastic process of which we are witnesses."'
[from the flaps]
The principal character is Professor John Minot, chairman of the English Department who together with his family, is the centre of the personal and moral struggle at the university. Minot is a scholar, a man of innocence and integrity who, when he refuses to take the loyalty oath, finds his whole world threatened.
The Searching Light is a novel of major importance, not only for its general literary excellence, its living characterizations and exciting narrative pace, but because it illuminates one of the central problems of our time. The story it tells of the crisis at Penfield is not isolated; it is being repeated every day throughout the United States.
Albert Einstein, who read the manuscript of this novel shortly before his death, said of it: "I have read the novel with great interest. Your description of persons and circumstances is very convincing indeed. It deserves the appreciation of every honest person that you have shed light on the whole morbid and fantastic process of which we are witnesses."'
[from the flaps]
345 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
6 people want to read
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