A FLAME FOR DOUBTING THOMAS

by Richard Llewellyn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 10, 1953

This roller coaster of a tale has the tawdry, hectic violence of the entertainment racket it reveals, and an overlay of sexual promiscuity that will make it subject to the Watch and Ward Societies. Completely American in setting, this bears no slightest resemblance to How Green Was My Valley which made Llewellyn a literary figure to reckon with. The story of an ex-history professor who throws up his job and tries to escape himself in the maelstrom of life on the amusement pier is indirectly a vehicle for the author's own ideas on the subject of the American way of life, but the reader has to dig through a lot of melodrama and gangster tactics and underworld sordidness and loose talk and sex to get at it. There are a few softer bits as the people whose livelihood depends on the pier show the milk of human kindness, but it- for this reader- wasn't worth the digging through garbage to get at the decencies hidden below. Easy, Public Libraries!

Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1953

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1953

Categories: FICTION