The Searching Light by Martha Dodd (1956)

I haven't read many propagandist novels before. Or novels with a strongly particular political point to make. So reading this has been a lesson in what the costs are, and what can be achieved. Dodd, it needs to be said, is a strong writer without being extraordinary. But she's no klutz, stuffing nonsense down our necks badly. The writing here is sometimes very sensitive and human and quietly moving. This is the story of a university professor on a small but prestigious campus in the Appalachians, and his fight against a loyalty oath at the time of McCarthy. It's also the story of his demanding wife, who has a heart condition; she believes in him, but doesn't want to lose her comfortable life. He is also deeply in love with her, and worries about the effects of his fight with the authorities on her peace of mind and therefore her fragile health. Several times in periods of tension her health fails almost fatally, and the lurch toward disaster is deftly pictured. It's also about their daughter, an aspiring artist living mainly in New York, who comes down to them from time to time, falls for one of his younger colleagues, struggles to get her work off the ground, and supports him in defying the regents of the university who are pressing for the signing of the oath. Their tense family relationship is one half of the action, and the different groups of staff at the university, their views, conflicts, alliances and tactics are the other. The limitation imposed by being so in thrall to a particular political angle works its way mainly in terms of a sense that all relating to it needs to be explained clearly and reinforced often. So discussions are very well explicated by all; the sense of messiness in humanity is somewhat absent. There is a feeling of all of it occurring under a glass dome - or as a diorama. It's a tribute to Dodd that even though this is the case it is not a dull book at all. She's done the best job that she could at what she was after; what she was after is a limited thing. Limited, but with quite a bit of entertaining space in it all the same.