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THE SERPENT'S EGG by David Duncan

THE SERPENT'S EGG

By

Pub Date: Feb. 7th, 1949
Publisher: Macmillan

A direct and intelligent, sometimes bitter, sometimes tender kaleidoscoping of the pressure of big business as it extends downward to little lives, and the reprisals of labor as it uses any pretext for a show of strength. The arbitration of a bus strike, based on a driver's overtime when stalled in a station, brings into play the various forces and people involved. There was Brad Johnson, union organizer, who was headed for security if he could win the strike; Sue, his wife, a party member, whose affiliation jeopardized her husband; Piper, a college Professor, who knew that the college and his job were sensitive to company money and good will; and particularly Kensington, arbitrating on the panel with Piper, who had a big job in Washington ahead of him. In love with Ann, who worked for one of the labor representatives, Kensington's weekend away with her is discovered and makes him susceptible to company coercion, and Kensington is given the choice of ruining Ann- and her husband just back from the Pacific, or throwing the decision in favor of the company. Cornered but not bsted, Kensington takes an out which hurts only himself and his future... An intellectually and emotionally honest and holding handling of some precarious points of personal conduct.