SCARLET PROFESSOR, THE(ISBN=9780385494694)

　　During his thirty-seven years at Smith College, Newton Arvin pub-lished groundbreaking studies of Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, and Longfellow that stand today as models of scholarship and psycho-logical 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 never-theless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plung-ing him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.
　　An utterly absorbing chronicle, The Scarlet Professor deftly cap-tures the essence of a conflicted man and offers a provocative andunsettling look at American moral fanaticism.
　　"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 dif-ferent place."--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle "Mesmerizingly well-written."  --Andrew Holleran, Out