The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal (Stonewall Book Award Winner) - Softcover

Werth, Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385494696 ISBN 13: 9780385494694

Publisher: Anchor Books, 2002

Synopsis

During his thirty-seven years at Smith College, Newton Arvin published groundbreaking studies of Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, and Longfellow that stand today as models of scholarship and psychological acuity. He cultivated friendships with the likes of Edmund Wilson and Lillian Hellman and became mentor to Truman Capote. A social radical and closeted homosexual, the circumspect Arvin nevertheless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plunging him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.

An utterly absorbing chronicle, The Scarlet Professor deftly captures the essence of a conflicted man and offers a provocative and unsettling look at American moral fanaticism.

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

About the Author:

Barry Werth lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0385494696
• ISBN 13: 9780385494694
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352