Introduction
"Generation gap" is a relatively new term-and a classic example of semantic confusion. Because the term is new, many people leap to the conclusion that it describes a new condition of human society. In actual fact, the condition is far from new, and we might be considerably more successful in our search for the causes of the current generation gap if we discarded the label entirely and used a more accurate one.
"The end of innocence" is a much older term, and superficially seems to be a more poetic and less relevant usage. Closer examination indicates otherwise, however. Great poets and novelists have been thinking and talking about the end of innocence for centuries, and so have eminent psychologists and sociologists. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is just one notably successful example of the novel of a young boy whose dreams are shattered when he first discovers the corruption and cynicism of his elders and thus falls into his own personal generation gap. There are so many others that the theme could legitimately be considered a separate subcategory of literature; it would not be stretching the idea too far to include such masterpieces as Huckleberry Fin in such a classification.
The publishers of Dansk Blue Books are more than proud to add The Innocent Daughter to that very important category. Sterling Harkins is a writer we have admired for a long time, but his popularity is such that it took a good deal of coaxing to tempt him away from other publishers and persuade him to do a book for us. Still a young man himself, he already has a distinguished academic career behind him. It was a fortunate day for the reading populace as a whole when he decided he could reach and influence a wider audience by writing for the mass media than he could by teaching English and modern history in a small though highly progressive Midwestern college.
If Mr. Harkins can be said to have one specialty above all others, that specialty is youth. He knows young people intimately and thoroughly: their healthy lust for life, their burning ambitions, their sometimes nebulous desires to reshape the world into something cleaner and better. He also knows their troubles and problems-and, through his teaching experience, he knows young women as well as he knows young men.
This wealth of knowledge has been skillfully mined by Mr. Harkins in the writing of The Innocent Daughter. This is the story of Becky Spencer, a trim blonde sixteen-year-old living in a Midwestern town, who turns up missing just before her sophomore year of high school. Her father, thirty-six-year-old Ted Spencer, discovers that Becky has run away-or perhaps been enticed away; he isn't sure which at first. Becky has always been a "good" girl, but she has been infected with the natural restlessness of her age, and in recent months has gradually been "turning hippie." When two long-haired boys a few years older than Becky stop in her town on their way to the West Coast, she meets them and goes with them. But this is not a standard "hitchhiking girl" story-far from it.
When the authorities have failed to locate Becky, Ted Spencer takes a month's leave of absence from his job and sets out in his own car to find her and bring her back. He has sketchy information about her companions and their vehicle, and seemingly has little chance of locating her. In fact, however, he is only a few days behind the group, and Mr. Harkins relates two parallel stories as he traces the closely interwoven destinies of his characters.
It is in the nature of things that Becky will have sexual adventures as she explores this facet of her new way of life. As it happens, her father has a sex experience every time he stops, too. Although his love for his wife is strong and his loneliness for her almost overwhelming at times, he encounters women whose allure is irresistible, and thus finds his own sexual horizons constantly broadening. As daughter Becky loses her innocence and begins to gain perspective on the world as it really is, father Ted is forced to recognize how naive and unrealistic he has been for most of his life. The results when they are finally reunited are, obviously, potentially explosive.
We will let Mr. Harkins tell the story of this dual quest and its dramatic consequences in his own way, however. For the reader, we are sure, the end product is a novel saturated with driving suspense, unique entertainment, and a fresh and invaluable outlook on a world that is constantly changing, but in many ways remaining gratifyingly the same.
The Publishers