EXCLUDED FROM THE CEMETERY

by Peter Marshall ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 1967

Like any tale that dips in and out of madness and the darkness of the soul, this story of a young man's confrontation with life and death probes through several strata of external and psychic reality. The first third of the novel is a stark, eerily airless, portrait of a grey town and an orphan boy raised by an antiseptic foster mother and a frighteningly pentecostal minister father. Haunted by memories of a fire, in which the Church Triumphant turns back the Enemy, but drawn to the lively non-conformity of old Uncle Tony, Joseph is beleaguered by hordes of gray-jacketed townspeople who accuse him of rape and send him away. In the second part he regains awareness in a mental institution and Joseph (now both Joseph and Mad Joe) gradually grasps the straws of reality proffered by the psychiatrist and discovers that, indeed, the town, Uncle Tony and the fire, were mere visions arising from an early childhood eye operation. Joseph's understanding is strengthened by love which is later withdrawn but he, after a terrible nightmare in which his early fantasies return, decides to Join again the grey world outside the asylum....Sustained, difficult and fine writing with a tangle of religious symbolism, a stimulating exercise (for a special market).

Pub Date: May 26, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION