STRANGERS AND AFRAID

by Thomas Sterling ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 22, 1952

An ambivalent and rather shapeless story of personal misdirection and disorientation, roughed in through the alternating narratives of Lyle Bishop, who had escaped the zealous, sectarian fanaticism of his youth to become the head of the League for the Right To Freedom (an American Civil Liberties type of organization), and Maccabee David, a colored runaway up from the South, who appeals to Bishop for help. But while David's fear is the fear of a Negro in a white world, accused of a crime he did not commit and cannot defend, Bishop's fear is more formless, as with disabused eyes he views the world in which he crusades with diminishing convictions; the washed out marriage (for money) to Mamie, an untidy, uncertain woman; and the finite self-revelation of his own weakness, the weakness of a man who had devoted himself to causes- out of fear of himself.... A lonely, awkward, and rather impotent itinerary of bewilderment which never achieves the ferment of a blooded emotion.

Pub Date: July 22, 1952

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1952

Categories: FICTION