The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin and America's Need to Blame - Hardcover

Werth, Barry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385494688 ISBN 13: 9780385494687

Publisher: Doubleday, 2001

Synopsis

A provocative, unsettling look at the tragic consequences of America's "need to punish" is seen through the life of Newton Arvin, one of the nation's great literary critics, whose entire world was shattered following virulent campaigns against homosexuals in the mid-twentieth century. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

A hell of a story . Werth puzzles out the tormented, self-absorbed Arvin with intelligent empathy. Newsweek
Perceptive . Refreshing and instructive . Barry Werth has told this gifted but unhappy man s story with sympathy but utterly without sentimentality or special pleading. His research is thorough and surprising. The Washington Post Book World

Mesmerizingly well-written. Andrew Holleran, Out
Exceptional. . . . I cannot recall a book of non-fiction in the [past] decade . . . that has demonstrated such mastery of the craft. Samuel G. Freedman, Chicago Tribune

Fascinating. . . . A riveting character study. . . . Vividly captures the troubled times and too quickly forgotten life of the quietly courageous Arvin. . . . Werth has written one of the most emotionally engaging and socially relevant books I ve read in quite a while. David Bahr, The Advocate

Werth s meticulous account . . . lend[s] the past new life. . . . An important reminder that the world has quite recently been a very different place. San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
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"A hell of a story.... Werth puzzles out the tormented, self-absorbed Arvin with...intelligent empathy."-Newsweek

"Perceptive.... Refreshing and instructive.... Barry Werth has told this gifted but unhappy man's story with sympathy but utterly without sentimentality or special pleading. His research...is thorough and surprising."-The Washington Post Book World

"Mesmerizingly well-written."-Andrew Holleran, Out

"Exceptional. . . . I cannot recall a book of non-fiction in the [past] decade . . . that has demonstrated such mastery of the craft." -Samuel G. Freedman, Chicago Tribune

"Fascinating. . . . A riveting character study. . . . Vividly captures the troubled times and too quickly forgotten life of the quietly courageous Arvin. . . . Werth has written one of the most emotionally engaging and socially relevant books I've read in quite a while." -David Bahr, The Advocate

"Werth's meticulous account . . . lend[s] the past new life. . . . An important reminder that the world has quite recently been a very different place." -San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

About the Author:

Barry Werth brought the story of Newton Arvin and the "Smith College Homosexual Scandal of 1960" to national attention for the first time in almost forty years in The New Yorker. Werth is the author of The Billion-Dollar Molecule and Damages. In addition to The New Yorker, his articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Outside. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385494688
• ISBN 13: 9780385494687
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 325