LOVE IS NOT A SAFE COUNTRY

by Paige Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1967

Counterfeit characters and venerable chestnuts clutter this southern- Civil Rights commercial novel. All the old faces and plot: Northern new-man and lawyer, Adam, (also Jewish to ensure an uncomfortable bar sinister) travels south to a small southern town, where he encounters Junior, owner of a hate newspaper; Sam, Junior's son-in-law, whose neck is but a shade less red; Rina, Sam's wife, a sleeping beauty who pities her monstrous men but who never has been aroused to cast off her white gloves of southern womanhood and act. A chance insult hurled at Junior by his other daughter, Diane, and fear of the Civil Rights movement makes Junior participate in the horrible mutilation of a mentally retarded Negro. Avenging the death of his friend, Hickory, a Negro retainer of Junior's family, murders Junior at dinner. Adam and Con, a southern lawyer roused to justice by the love of Diane, undertake to defend Hickory. But Adam is accidentally killed in the schizophrenic embrace of an angry young Negro Civil Rights leader. Eventually however, everything is resolved in optimistic cliche and the real agonies and hopes of those involved in the Civil Rights struggle deserve better.

Pub Date: March 27, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION