num_pages: 352
description: During his thirty-seven years at Smith College, Newton Arvin published groundbreaking studies of Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, and Longfellow that stand today as models of scholarship and psychological acuity. He cultivated friendships with the likes of Edmund Wilson and Lillian Hellman and became mentor to Truman Capote. A social radical and closeted homosexual, the circumspect Arvin nevertheless survived McCarthyism. But in September 1960 his apartment was raided, and his cache of beefcake erotica was confiscated, plunging him into confusion and despair and provoking his panicked betrayal of several friends.An utterly absorbing chronicle, The Scarlet Professor deftly captures the essence of a conflicted man and offers a provocative and unsettling look at American moral fanaticism.
language: English
title: The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
titlecomplete: The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
genres: LGBT, Gay, History, Biography, School, Nonfiction, Queer
ratings_count: 109
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Stonewall Book Award
category: Non-Fiction, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Lambda Literary Award, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: The Publishing Triangle Award
category: The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
publisher: Anchor