The Committee

by Sterling Watson

"In this sharply crafted novel, his seventh, [Watson] re-creates the era with rich detail and a creeping sense of dread...The Committee is the kind of story that makes you hope it can't happen here--but reminds you that it already has."
--Tampa Bay Times

"A captivating read and an absorbing tale about the abuses that can arise from intolerance and prejudice. It carries a warning from the past to the siloed, fractured communities of today."
--Historical Novel Society

"The Committee takes place on campus, but deserves to be included with those 'academic' novels like Mary McCarthy's The Groves of Academe, Randall Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution, Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, and Jane Smiley's Moo, all books that burst out of their scholarly settings to light up the characters and societies they live in. And life in Gainesville in the 1950s doesn't bear looking at too closely: Without being preachy or didactic, Watson's book exposes the race, class, and gender wars running below the picturesque pathways like tainted water; there's been some progress since then, but the reader is led to wonder how meaningful it's been...This book will hold you to the very end, and after."
--Creative Loafing Tampa, a Poet's Notebook post from Peter Meinke, Poet Laureate of Florida

"Sterling Watson's new novel, The Committee, transmutes Lavender Scare investigators' ruthless assaults on suspected homosexuals in 1950s Gainesville into heart-racing fiction that's every bit as spellbinding as Watson's noir masterpiece Suitcase City...Even in the midst of its historical and political pre-occupations, as well as its expertly paced progression into danger and violence, The Committee has its moments as a finely nuanced academic novel. With its richly drawn cast of identifiable English department types, from the brilliant and ambitious to the middling and jaded, their covert alliances and prickly departmental meeting dynamic, The Committee at times feels like a darker counterpart to Richard Russo's Straight Man."
--New York Journal of Books

"A well-written story with many layers, that Watson skillfully peels away in each and every chapter."
--Bookstr, Three to Read pick for the week of Febraruy 3

"The Johns Committee, a real, if lesser-known, McCarthy-esque group active in Florida, hovers over this tense, character-driven novel set in 1958...Watson ably evokes a sense of the McCarthy era's regional impact in this thought-provoking story."
--Publishers Weekly

In the late 1950s, Gainesville, Florida, seems to be a sleepy university town. Its residents live, by outward appearances, ordinary lives. And yet the town is far from ordinary. The most private acts of professors, students, townspeople rich and poor, and politicians are under the close scrutiny of a shadowy group of men--the Committee--who use the powers of government and the police to investigate, threaten, and control this increasingly fearful community.

The Committee pits friends against friends and threatens careers and lives in a struggle for the soul of a town, a university, and an ideal. Based on actual historical events and set against the backdrop of political, cultural, and class turmoil, this is a story of love--both licit and hidden--war, friendship, betrayal, compromise, and finally the necessity to st

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Audiobook

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 7, 2020

About the author

STERLING WATSON is the author of seven novels, including Deadly Sweet, Sweet Dream Baby, Fighting in the Shade, and Suitcase City. Watson’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Georgia Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. He was director of the creative writing program at Eckerd College for twenty years and now teaches in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. Of his sixth novel, Suitcase City, Tom Franklin said, “If this taut literary crime novel doesn’t center Sterling Watson on the map, we should change maps.” Watson lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Committee is his latest novel.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for an enlightening book about a depressing time in American history. This is historical fiction, but based on a real life Florida state committee modeled on the US Senatorial McCarthy Committee. It was called the Johns Committee after its creator Charley Johns, who as President of the Florida Senate, became Governor when Governor Dan McCarty died of a heart attack. Its formal name was the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee. It was established in 1953 to root out homosexuals, communists, advocates for civil rights and people who were "passing"--code for African Americans or Native Americans "passing" as white.
The book takes place in 1958, 4 years after the McCarthy committee has been disbanded in disgrace.
The main character is Tom Stall, a professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. It opens with the suicide of Jack Leaf, a professor who Tom knows slightly. He rushes to the scene of Leaf's dead body after he jumped out a 3rd story window.
There are many twists and turns in a sordid story of blackmail of various gay professors on campus. Tom is reluctantly dragged into the middle of this blackmail. He is asked to spy on his fellow professors and threatened with revealing a secret from his past if he doesn't cooperate. He walks a fine line trying to keep his integrity intact.
Some quotes:
"Jack Leaf was a Red Indian, and he was passing. Passing was serious business in the South, and Gainesville, Florida, was definitely the South."
"Florida was America's Vacation Land, and her beautiful beaches, the ring of white sand that enclosed her like a necklace of pearls, were cosmopolitan places where North and South mingled and even the races came within shouting distance of each other. But, oh God, go inland a few miles and Florida was Alabama and Mississippi with a vengeance. She was a land of lynching, convict labor, peonage, and bare-knuckles politics that had not changed since Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest had served as the first grand wizard for the Ku Klux Klan."

One inaccuracy on p. 350: "HUAC had died when the lawyer Joseph Welch had asked Joe McCarthy, 'Have you no sense of decency?" Joe McCarthy was the US Senator from Wisconsin. He was not a member of HUAC.
HUAC was the House Unamerican Activities Committee and was still active when it came to Buffalo, NY, in the early 60s when I was in secondary school. I remember reading about it and the protesters, including actor Sterling Hayden.
Thank You Akashic Books, and Sterling Watson for sending me this book through LibraryThing.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the opening scream of the book, Tom Stall’s life is changed. His simple professor’s life at a quiet Florida campus—with cocktail-hour martinis and a pearl-wearing wife—turns into a run-in with The Committee, a revisiting of his mistakes of the past, and a reexamination of his values and character. Certainly, he knows the right thing to do and always does it, right? Add to that the presence of a new colleague from the North—a woman and a feminist, no less—and Stall is faced with more challenges to his world view. In The Committee, author Sterling Watson takes us to the threshold of a cultural awakening in this country and shows it to us through the flawed though well-intentioned character of Tom Stall. This book gives the reader much to think about long after the book is closed.

[Jim Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story, but from my point of view, the misogynistic and racial background painted by the author is unfortunately still present in Florida politics today as evidenced by the current governor. The pork chop / lamb chop divide is less evident to outsiders, but may still exist - I cannot say with certainty. I know I would not willingly be living in that state if any hue of this book is true. That said, I enjoyed this book, and the patience of the principal characters portrayed in this book. It caused me to reflect on difficult times in my life - not necessarily all ways positively..

[Allen Pasternak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Committee referred to in the title of this outstanding novel is the Johns Committee overseen by Florida mayor Charlie Johns during the Second Red Scare after Senator Joe McCarthy protected us from the Reds earlier. I had not previously known of this regional effort.
The novel is set in 1958 in Gainesville, Florida when the work of the Committee was winding down. It seems like they couldn't find the subversives they were looking for, so their attention strayed to the homosexuals in academic life. The original function of the Committee was to eliminate subversives, civil rights groups, and homosexuals. The main character is English professor Tom Stall who might have squandered his domestic bliss and job security taking a stand against the Committee.
This novel briefly enters the realm of crime fiction and even includes a couple of private eyes but is better categorized as historical fiction describing incidents I had previously been unaware of. The characters are all well developed as was descriptions of academic life in the middle of the 20th Century. Waltson captures the time accurately and as I remember them. It never gets preachy in its message though at some times I wish it did. The work of the Johns Committee remains the backdrop for the actions in this novel, and we should all be aware of this type of shameful behavior. Well writer and worth reading, this book never indulges in partisan rhetoric. It all comes down to Joseph Welch, the Army lawyer during the McCarthy hearings, scolding Senator Joe McCarthy with his now famous quote of "Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

[Caryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction and also a page- turner thriller especially for residents of Gainesville. I had not been aware of what the Johns Committee did here in the 1950’s until the exhibit early this year at the Matheson Museum. Not something to be proud of in this university town. When I pass or go into the Thomas Center, then the Thomas Hotel, and to other places in town I will recall this novel.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good fiction book about the real mid 20th Century Florida "Johns Committee" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1389667) which were self-appointed straight white Christian men charged to rid the state's universities and colleges of Communists, LGBTQ folk, and non-believers. The focus of The Committee is Tom Stall, a tenured professor at U Florida in Gainesville. Tom's got a cushy life with his wife and daughter as the assistant Dean of the English Department. Then the Johns Committee comes to town and reeks havoc on a number of closeted gay faculty. Watson's notes at the end of the book state that he specifically attempted to write characters with flaws from that time period's perspective. He succeeded for sure. I kept wanting one of the victims to be the focal point, or the new, first female faculty in the department. But this was Tom's story as a straight, white man. 3.5 out of 5.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical fiction novel, The Committee takes place in the late 50’s in South Florida, during a time where Lt. Governor Charley Johns had ascended to the governorship. Once in office, Governor Johns formed the Johns Committee, a group whose goal it was to root out communists, homosexuals, dissidents, and other “undesirables” from public universities. The very goal reeks of McCarthyism and witch hunts which use fear and intimidation to hold people in check.

The book opens with a shocking public suicide, after which the story follows Tom Stall, soon to be the new chairman of the university. Except under the imprimatur of the Committee, Stall’s real new job is to work for them because…they have something on him that cannot get out.

Stall reluctantly takes on the role, as he questions the various characters as they relate to the awful tragedy of the opening scene. What results is a web of intrigue and secrets, private lives exposed to the public, and the painful realization that the options for nonconformity were slim. Homosexuality was not public or mainstream in the 1950’s: to be outed meant termination and blacklisting. But as Stall digs deeper, feeling lives crumbling under the pressure, he finds himself needing to deal with his own secrets as well…

The book is a fast read, capturing the dark spirit of the times. It moves along and almost reads like a classier version of a pulp detective novel. And it reads well in the present age, where neighbors turn on one another easily and we are more suspicious than ever of anyone who is different.

[Laura Robb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The integrity of the main character, Professor Stall, drew me in from the first pages. His honesty about his war experiences and his admitting his own ambition while remaining unimpressed with himself made me trust him as narrator of this story. Set in the late 1950's in Gainesville's academic centerpiece, the University of Florida, the story is rife with untrustworthy characters and the reader needs someone like Stall to be a nuanced guide through the suspenseful plot.

Stall's voice is authentic to the times - on the cusp of an upheaval over the rights of Blacks, women, gays - well, anyone who wasn't white, male, and gainfully employed. He's not sure how much he wants his wife to stray from her "role", or how much criticism he can take from a graduate student, who is Jewish to boot. He's shocked when he discovers his colleague, half Native American, was "passing." But he knows change is coming and he doesn't want to hold it back so when his ethics are challenged by the historically accurate Johns Committee, he knows the right thing to do - even if he's a little slow in doing it. Sterling Watson created an frank look at what prejudice can create and the strength of character necessary to defeat it.

[Damian Serbu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, based in a dark chapter in U.S. history. I enjoyed how Watson weaved the history of the Johns Committee and what was going on in Florida into the narrative. I learned from this story, which was fun since my study of history included this era and McCarthyism but I didn't know much about this particular committee. That being said, the story within the novel itself was a nice vehicle but didn't overwhelm me. I found the characters to be a little bland. The narrator is a straight guy, so maybe it's because I'm just not in to straight guys. :)

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

finished in one (mostly) straight shot on a winter sunday.

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 3 out of 5]

From a historical perspective, this book is quite interesting. While most Americans know of the House Un-American Activities Committee, few outside of Florida know of the Johns Committee (Florida Legislative Investigative Committee), which was established in 1956 with the mandate to “investigate all organizations whose principles or activities included a course of conduct on the part of any person or group which could constitute violence, or a violation of the laws of the state.” In practice, this meant harassing those who promoted civil rights, those who identified as gay, and those who espoused any political beliefs that differed from those of the Committee members. In particular, it targeted students, professors, and other employees of institutions of higher education. Its allegations, like those of the HUAAC, ruined the lives of many. Thus, the author calls attention to a subchapter of history of which many may not have been aware.

However, as a novel, it does not work. The author's attention to some historical details -- Southern politeness, campus politics, as well as the misogyny, homophobia, and conservative paranoia of the era --succeed in capturing the stultifying atmosphere of the era, but it also results in a plot that moves painfully slowly and a cast of incredibly boring, and at times, stereotypic characters, whose fate the reader finds it difficult to care about.

[Joanna Talbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance copy from the publisher. This novel does a great job of showing the humanness of the people who were involved in and affected by the Johns Committee in Florida, which operated from 1956 to 1965 hunting for subversive activities. From 1958-59 the Committee focused on the University of Florida, where this novel takes place. The characters were multi-faceted and complicated - as we all are. It reads like a mystery but there are many layers to the story - Watson does a great job of peeling each layer away. If you're interested in psychology and history I highly recommend this book.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this and found it educational. I had never heard of the John’s Committee ( I’ve never lived in FL.) Good historical fiction, a tight believable personal plot. One individual’s struggle with its impact as he tries to deal with important issues in his own life. My only quibble was my sense that Tom’s reaction to it all is a bit too rational, too intellectual. His intellectual approach makes good sense, he’s quite clever but I think most would suffer more emotional pain than Tom lets us see. But lots of good points and I stayed heavily invested in Tom.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program.

I enjoyed the Committee. I wasn't alive in 1958, but I felt like Watson's portrayal of it was real and accurate. The dialog throughout was authentic, and I found some bits of humor. A well reading book.

My only (minor) concern was that the climax felt a little rushed. It could have been tenser or something, and with a better flow

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a child born at the tail end of the Boomer era, I find the societal norms of the era portrayed in this book appalling. I am glad to see just how far we have come, however much some want to send us back to the 1950's. That decade, especially for minorities including women and gays, was not rosy. This fictional book exposes the seedy underbelly.

On another note, I was happy to read a book set in Florida. The author and I both love the west central coast of Florida.

[Maryrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure how I heard about this book probably some recommended list. It is well worth reading. Time period is 1952 Florida in a University setting. This is historical fiction with all the right elements: prejudice, jealousy, revenge, love, hatred, justice etc.
I look forward to reading this authors other books.

[Matt Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This historical fiction feels honest to the nobility and limitations of the red scare era. This book does an interesting job of fictionalizing a state-level HUAC of sorts that caused distress and paranoia in the post-war era. The mystery and intrigue are engaging, and even a Georgia grad like me could enjoy this book set in UF's Gainesville.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watson’s writing makes this book more than just a thriller. Couldn’t put it down and instantly did my own research when I was done. I live in Gainesville and wasn’t aware of this episode in its history. Certainly a timely read.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

in the late 1950's the FL Legislature authorized the Johns Committee to investigate homosexual and communist infiltration into the universities in FL. This historical novel is based on those investigations at the University of Florida in Gainesville. An amazing story,

[Shelby Raebeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solidly constructed and an excellent read. At times, the story is a bit familiar--the homophobic good ole boys network--but the 1950s Florida setting, the characterization, and the paragraph by paragraph writing are all spot on. Highly recommend.

[Melissa Kindell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book that was well written! I enjoyed reading about a place that I was so familiar with but about a period of time and events that were new to me! Very enlightening to read about the witch-hunt for homosexuals, communist and other perceived immoral characters teaching the youth of the time.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the internal dialogue of the characters. I felt like I knew Tom Stall in person. Completely not prepared for the end but I can appreciate it all the same. Great writer that I am adding to my list!

[Cathy Engstrom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everand Audio. Uses historical truth of 1950’s Florida government entity that attempted to root out gays, communists and activists from universities and other organizations to create an implausible “English professor as action hero” saga. Overly long and pedantic. (2 stars)

[Luke S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literary and suspenseful in one. If you think things are tense nowadays, try navigating the politics in mid-century Florida where teaching a course on Marx could land you in jail.

Taught, suspenseful. Loved the ending.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author's note at the end is a nice touch. Writing was very simple, maybe sometimes too much so, but storyline was strong enough to carry it.

[Imene MELLAL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it took me nearly 10 days to finish it, being busy with work, I still enjoyed the story with all its characters and events.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful and layered tale, based on real events in Florida history. We unfortunately may be on the cusp of history repeating itself.

[Pete Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

a conspiracy group in Florida trying to rid the universities of left wing and gay teachers based on facts in Gainesville, Florida in the 1950's

[Elizabeth Dunham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book bans, curriculum modification, and the growth of the “parental rights” movement have all made Florida’s educational space feel a bit – shall we say oppressive? – over the last two years. It would easy to conclude that academic freedom in Florida is currently facing the fight of its life. But it wouldn’t be the first time.

Any reader wanting a history lesson wrapped in a compelling, believable novel will find much to contemplate here. Historians, of necessity, are skeptical of historical fiction. This book provides many comparisons to our current times and perhaps why many believe we are on our way back into that era.

Sterling Watson's historical novel "The Committee" center's on the oppressive Johns Committee a secretive white legislator group of Florida statesmen, led by Senator Charley Johns in the 1950s who ruthlessly met at the University of Florida and centered on vetting the faculty, gay people, and other “undesirable elements."