Author Description

This is the story of four men caught in the changing South of the 1950s: J.T. Malone, a small-town druggist who is dying of an incurable disease and who is distressed by the knowledge that he has never really lived; Judge Fox Clane, a senile former congressman who is indignant about the civil rights movement; Sherman Pew, the judge's black servant, who buys a home in a white neighborhood; and Jester Clane, the judge's grandson, who harbors vaguely erotic feelings for Pew. Through the eyes of these individuals McCullers explores the roots of racial prejudice, so strong in the fifties, and the dual morality of the town's leading whites - benevolent when imposing standards of virtual slavery, violent and bloodthirsty at the hint of equality or change. In this thoughtful and moving novel four men, young and old, have distinct feelings about death, love and justice, yet their past histories are inextricably bound together.