CAMPUS TOWN

The author of Border City (1945), which dealt with Mexican minority groups, here presents a most unflattering portrait of a (Texas) university in which the Ku Klux and prejudice pressures bring about melodrama in Lofty's undergraduate life. Lefty, scarred with hate for his father, ready to swallow whole the glamor he sees as a freshman, soon has his values turned topsy turvy, begins to have the knots taken out of his thinking as he is the witness of a Klan beating, gets to view the inside workings of the college policy toward endowments, social distinctions and sports programs. Spurning Emily when he learns how thoroughly she has embraced the double standard of the '20's, almost wrecking his arm in semi-pro baseball during the summer, having the coach completely wreck it in a college game in the fall, learning his room-mate is one of the Klan and finally championing the cause of two suspect professors, Lefty ends his college career by escaping Klan vengeance with the help of Emily and his room-mate -- only to refuse to run away from his enemies. An outspoken airing of vicious educational and prejudice practices, this is not for the squeamish reader.