"Philip Arrow, Jr., returns to his deep South town of Ashton after six years in New York to take over the editorship of his father’s newspaper the Dispatch. Far from ’liberating’ him, New York
has had an inverted influence on his feelings about his home town and its main concern -- segregation. He was forced to leave Ashton once before because of what was considered his extreme
liberal position, but dismayed by what he calls New York’s ’hothouse’ liberalism, he is now determined to align himself with themain body of sentiment in his town, going slow. But the death of
an African American male who was about to test the voting registration laws causes Arrow to take a more discernable stand."-- Kirkus Review.