Introduction
The publication of The Reluctant Sister marks an unusual and highly gratifying triumph for the publishers of Dansk Blue Books. The eminent scholar and author of many erudite tomes known only to specialists in his own field, Professor Isaac Cox has long been a close personal friend of ours-but has openly never quite considered us as players in his intellectual league. For months-in fact, for years-we have attempted to persuade him to write for us, but of course we could not presume too far on the grounds of deep camaraderie and mutual respect alone. Professor Cox was more than ready to concede that we knew the commercial book publishing field better than he did but he was not willing to admit that there was any significant degree of overlap in the audiences to which we were addressing ourselves.
It was only after the first several Dansk Blue Books were off the presses and in the hands of the reading public that Professor Cox came to us voluntarily, admitted that he had been wrong about the scope of our ambitions, and actually asked to be permitted to write a Dansk novel himself. We hope and believe our pleasure is not that felt over a mere petty victory; we sincerely think that it is a tremendously important victory for all concerned when a man of the stature of Professor Cox realizes how important a medium the so-called popular novel can be.
It was only to be expected that, having once made up his mind to tackle the job at all, Professor Cox would produce a multi-faceted gem of a novel about the ongoing social change in Southern California's suburban communities. Primarily a motivational sociologist, Cox believes that the changing mores of the nation tend to follow the lead of this part of our great Western state.
The profession probably most representative of a culture, Professor Cox further believes, is journalism; and so he has chosen to tell the story of The Reluctant Sister, the true-to-life tale of a young female reporter through whose eyes the reader is permitted to glimpse the cultural adjustments Americans are making under the pressure of the advanced technology which motivates their lives and corrupts their environments.
Not since The Front Page has the newspaper business been so thoroughly and accurately portrayed; not since Citizen Kane have its effects on the lives of all of our citizens been so graphically limned; and not since Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust has so much knowledge of both journalism and Southern California been made important use of by a major writer. Rarely has society and its effects upon the individual been so starkly described as they are here, and even more rarely has an author compressed so much social comment and philosophical observation into one novel.
It is almost impossible, in fact, to recall any work of fiction so dedicated to the study of a whole society in microcosm. Every aspect of our present transition into a new and radically altered society is considered by Professor Cox in this book. Based on first-hand experience as well as methodical and intensive research, The Reluctant Sister describes the full range of psychological harm done to the human animal during his sojourn on this smog-enshrouded planet.
Where is man going? Professor Cox hardly dares to guess but, in this account of man in flux as he rides the mainstream of life in a small city, the author notes with precise care the melding of classes formerly separated by financial barriers, the breakdown of the individual's work orientation, and the still-rigid cliquishness of far too many of America's social and racial groups.
And, in all of this, where is the morality of our fathers? Where have the comfortable old days gone and what has replaced them? Money grubbing would seem to be a good answer, if a superficial one. There is more, however, as Professor Cox entertainingly but thought-provokingly points out in the story of Nan Flanders, 18-year-old girl reporter-or sob sister, if you will.
The individual still exists. Though he may be caught in the inexorable tide of human passion and inhuman attitudes and poses, the individual always shines through like a glint of metal in the oily muck of progress.
This work stands out as one of those rare shouts of sanity in today's madhouse of highspeed communications. It is a stern and sober warning of things to come. It is a socially significant and highly successful attempt to show graphically the ills, the evils, the weaknesses and the overwhelming perversion of man's ambitions and ideals in today's restless and confused rat race of a world.
The publishers, therefore, consider it a signal honor to be allowed to broadcast this message, and we hope that it is heard the world over.
-The Publishers