The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

A hell of a story. Werth puzzles out the tormented, self-absorbed Arvin withintelligent empathy.Newsweek

Perceptive. Refreshing and instructive. Barry Werth has told this gifted but unhappy mans story with sympathy but utterly without sentimentality or special pleading. His researchis 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 Ive read in quite a while. David Bahr, The Advocate

Werths 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

Author Bio

Barry Werth lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.