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The Sin Warriors
Fifty years ago, three hundred teachers and students in Florida vanished. No storm troopers. No mass graves. Who were they? Just wasted lives from blackmail, coercion, entrapment--tactics of state senator Charlie Johns and his covert investigations of homosexuals in Florida's universities. The Sin Warriors is a novel inspired by those actual events. David Ashton has struggled for self-acceptance and identity his entire life. David's estrangement from a dysfunctional family childhood, his sexual awakening and bonding with his gay professor places them in the crosshairs of state senator Billy Sloat, an ambitious, country politician obsessed with ridding the university of subversives--homosexuals, blacks, alleged communists--on the heels of the McCarthy hearings during the mid-fifties. But who is Sloat actually, and where does his hatred and contempt come from? From a backwoods childhood in North Florida to his reign as a powerful senator, Sloat intends to destroy the new life David has built for himself in college, and questions are What is family? Whom should we love? What price do we pay to defend our country and our integrity? Which is more enduring fear or love? These themes provide counterpoint to corrupt politicians and their abuse of power to further their own prejudices and limited understanding of what it is to be human.
- GenresLGBT
274 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 17, 2013
In the 1950s and into the 60s, the State of Florida allowed a power-hungry corrupt State Senator to unleash one of the most heinous, shameful assaults on education, educators and students in the history of not only that State, but perhaps in the entire country. This assault was the product of The Johns Committee, headed by Charlie Johns. The committee was covertly launched ostensibly to deal with communist infiltration of the State's universities. The focus of the group soon changed and became a witch hunt to identify and rid the college environment of homosexual professors and students.
This is a fictionalized account of what was sanctioned by Florida Governors and Senators. The action of the Committee included the bribing of witnesses, guilt by association, use of innuendo, threatening, blackmail and intimidation. Tactics used by the Committee included pulling those they wished to accuse out of classrooms, calling them late at night and pulling them into late night interrogation sessions without benefit of consul.
Results of the so-called investigation? Suicides, careers in ruins, families torn apart and approximately 300 teachers and students disappeared from Florid Universities. Reading this fictional account is frightening. Living it must have been hell.
This is a fictionalized account of what was sanctioned by Florida Governors and Senators. The action of the Committee included the bribing of witnesses, guilt by association, use of innuendo, threatening, blackmail and intimidation. Tactics used by the Committee included pulling those they wished to accuse out of classrooms, calling them late at night and pulling them into late night interrogation sessions without benefit of consul.
Results of the so-called investigation? Suicides, careers in ruins, families torn apart and approximately 300 teachers and students disappeared from Florid Universities. Reading this fictional account is frightening. Living it must have been hell.
June 7, 2020
The theme is good. Interesting story line. There are a few too many characters. The book is difficult to follow at times and you need to go back figure out who's who.
February 11, 2013
“Ellis Cohen knew the tactic. The late night call. The anonymous voice summoning the victim. He had readied himself. ‘Do you have a subpoena?’ Cohen asked.”
This remarkable first novel by Julian E. Farris captures the anti-homosexual hysteria of the 1950s and early 1960s. As the author explains in an Afterword:
“In 1956, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, commonly known as the Johns Committee and chaired by Senator Charley Johns, was formed to investigate the NAACP as a communist front, following the US Supreme Court ruling overturning segregation in public schools. Unsuccessful in its attack on the NAACP, the committee shifted its focus to homosexuals in the state’s universities. . . . Because homosexuality was legally a criminal offence, or was regarded as a sickness, there was no defense if an individual attempted to challenge the committee with its power of public exposure.”
As the novel shows, between 1956 and 1961, when its activities were officially approved by the state government, the investigating committee operated outside the law. Targeted “suspects” were summoned late at night to hotel rooms where they were questioned about their private lives, their friends and the reputations of their colleagues or classmates. They were threatened with total ruin if they dared to withhold information.
Like a film or a play, this novel focuses on different characters by turns. The author indicates, as far as possible, what motivates “Billy Sloat” (a fictionalized Charley Johns) to persecute “deviance,” and how he is supported by his henchmen, a lawyer and a police investigator. Sloat’s victims are also three-dimensional characters who (like Sloat) have been formed by childhood experiences, and who yearn for acceptance.
David Ashton, college freshman, has survived an upbringing by an angry mother who won’t explain why David’s father seems unwilling to have any contact with David, although he sends him a birthday present every year. By the time David arrives at the state college, he has already experienced a broken heart when his “best friend” deserts him. David is ripe to discover a wider world of ideas, as represented by a popular Humanities professor who becomes the mentor to a close-knit group of young male students. The “family” that Professor Lee forms with his protégés comes under Billy Sloat’s scrutiny as evidence of the cynical perversion of innocent youth in the guise of education. Yet the scenes of Professor Lee’s musical evenings with his “boys” evoke the wholesome joy of young adults coming to understand the world and their own place in it.
The southern legacy of racial segregation, the influence of religious fundamentalism, the politics of social class, and the targeting of post-secondary schools as hotbeds of corruption by anti-intellectual bigots are all seamlessly woven into an absorbing plot about coming of age and learning to love in a dangerous time.
This subject-matter is the stuff of melodrama, but Julian Farris handles it with understated skill. This novel is written in the realist style of “problem novels” of the era in which it takes place; it is both of its time and beyond it. The book is worth reading because it shows how far the social and legal status of GLBT people has come in approximately fifty years, since sexual minorities were openly persecuted, sometimes to death, by every major institution.
However, the characters in this novel are more memorable than their circumstances. When David and the professor casually enter an obscure bar named the Stonewall Inn in New York City, the reader is cheered by the implied promise that their lives will get better. One of the messages of this novel is that the human spirit is stronger than oppressive power, and it bears repeating.
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This remarkable first novel by Julian E. Farris captures the anti-homosexual hysteria of the 1950s and early 1960s. As the author explains in an Afterword:
“In 1956, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, commonly known as the Johns Committee and chaired by Senator Charley Johns, was formed to investigate the NAACP as a communist front, following the US Supreme Court ruling overturning segregation in public schools. Unsuccessful in its attack on the NAACP, the committee shifted its focus to homosexuals in the state’s universities. . . . Because homosexuality was legally a criminal offence, or was regarded as a sickness, there was no defense if an individual attempted to challenge the committee with its power of public exposure.”
As the novel shows, between 1956 and 1961, when its activities were officially approved by the state government, the investigating committee operated outside the law. Targeted “suspects” were summoned late at night to hotel rooms where they were questioned about their private lives, their friends and the reputations of their colleagues or classmates. They were threatened with total ruin if they dared to withhold information.
Like a film or a play, this novel focuses on different characters by turns. The author indicates, as far as possible, what motivates “Billy Sloat” (a fictionalized Charley Johns) to persecute “deviance,” and how he is supported by his henchmen, a lawyer and a police investigator. Sloat’s victims are also three-dimensional characters who (like Sloat) have been formed by childhood experiences, and who yearn for acceptance.
David Ashton, college freshman, has survived an upbringing by an angry mother who won’t explain why David’s father seems unwilling to have any contact with David, although he sends him a birthday present every year. By the time David arrives at the state college, he has already experienced a broken heart when his “best friend” deserts him. David is ripe to discover a wider world of ideas, as represented by a popular Humanities professor who becomes the mentor to a close-knit group of young male students. The “family” that Professor Lee forms with his protégés comes under Billy Sloat’s scrutiny as evidence of the cynical perversion of innocent youth in the guise of education. Yet the scenes of Professor Lee’s musical evenings with his “boys” evoke the wholesome joy of young adults coming to understand the world and their own place in it.
The southern legacy of racial segregation, the influence of religious fundamentalism, the politics of social class, and the targeting of post-secondary schools as hotbeds of corruption by anti-intellectual bigots are all seamlessly woven into an absorbing plot about coming of age and learning to love in a dangerous time.
This subject-matter is the stuff of melodrama, but Julian Farris handles it with understated skill. This novel is written in the realist style of “problem novels” of the era in which it takes place; it is both of its time and beyond it. The book is worth reading because it shows how far the social and legal status of GLBT people has come in approximately fifty years, since sexual minorities were openly persecuted, sometimes to death, by every major institution.
However, the characters in this novel are more memorable than their circumstances. When David and the professor casually enter an obscure bar named the Stonewall Inn in New York City, the reader is cheered by the implied promise that their lives will get better. One of the messages of this novel is that the human spirit is stronger than oppressive power, and it bears repeating.
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January 22, 2013
A novel that includes a fictional account of the real damage done by The Johns Committee (run by a State Senator from FL from the mid-50s-early 60s.) This committee threatened academic freedom and targeted gay men at the Univ. of Florida (professors, students, employees, etc.) when Senator Johns ran into resistance trying to target the NAACP for communist infiltration. A truly despicable part of US history and one that is largely forgotten now. It's worth remembering. A good overview on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_...
March 5, 2016
This is not a romance. It's a fictionalized account of a time in Florida's history that everyone should know about and too few do. I had read parts of the legislative report but this book makes real something that damaged countless lives . I don't know what else to say except that this book should be read by all who are interested in gay history or the dirtiness of politics.
It's fiction but it's fact and it serves as a reminder that LGBTQ rights are still fragile.
It's fiction but it's fact and it serves as a reminder that LGBTQ rights are still fragile.
August 14, 2013
An excellent novel fictionalizing the Johns Committee witch hunt of homosexuals in Florida.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews