Introduction
No one who reads the morning paper, who listens to the evening news on the radio or on television, can argue the fact that these are troubled times we live in. The pace of life in our Western world seems to accelerate constantly, with changes following so closely on the heels of changes that we haven't a chance to stop and catch our breath and consider what is happening to our confusing world. This is true in every arena of human existence, but we hazard that the problem is most severe in the personal part of our lives. Otherwise, why the current craze for encounter, or '"regroups"; why the glut of books and articles on psychological self-improvement (i.e. How To Be Your Own Bent Friend, I'm Okay, You're Okay, etc.); why the hundred or more dollars which millions dish out for an hour on their analyst's couch?
Here at Fireside Reader we believe that one of the more important causes of personal unhappiness and insecurity is that few of us take enough time to truly think about what is going on in our society. We're so busy running along trying to keep pace with the onrushing current that we forget to stand aside and take a good look beneath the facade. Take, for example, the recent scandals concerning Watergate and the CIA-until a few brave citizens took the time to dig down to the depths and discover the frightening truths, the docile and apathetic tax-payer was being taken for a ride.
The written word can be a powerful weapon in the causes of fighting injustice and aiding the population along the path toward personal fulfillment, and in this sense we sincerely feel that a publisher has a commitment to the public just as much as the attorney or doctor, the social worker or educator. Taking the time to sit down with a book gives the reader a much-needed interval of respite from the morally and spiritually deadening rat-race and infuses a new dose of energy by pointing out the way other people have solved their conflicts and overcome their doubts and fears. It is for this reason that we take all possible efforts to seek out authors who have a talent for, and a dedication to, examining the relevant themes of our present-day world. We do not wish to criticize romantic fantasies or escapist adventure novels, merely to point out that without some meaningful moral message a book becomes as much a flight from reality and responsibility as that third martini. An author can simultaneously entertain and instruct, as Roger Gray's sure bestseller, Seduced into Sin, conclusively proves.
Seduced into Sin is, in our opinion, the sort of book which is powerful enough to help our fellow Americans make positive changes in that perplexing area-family life. In addition, it's fast-paced, readable style is so professional that we think you'll be as astonished as we were to learn that it's Roger Gray's first novel. He came to fiction through the back door; after a successful career of writing for technical and scientific publications, it suddenly struck him that these articles, important and exciting though they might be, were never going to reach the general public who most needed to receive the message. In the course of preparing a detailed study of a randomly selected group of three hundred women who were (a.) members of one or another sort of Women's Liberation organization, and (b.) the patients of psychiatrists, he came to the conclusion that he must present these facts in a fictionalized form.
The problems faced by today's modern women are only one of the topics treated in Roger Gray's fascinating account of an average family living in Midwestern America. Rape, incest, and a score of other very relevant subjects which may seem offensive to the over-sensitive, Puritan-conditioned mentality are covered in unrelentingly vivid and honest detail. Since he's the justly proud father of two charming and refreshingly well-adjusted adolescent girls, the author writes of the traumas our youth undergoes in these days of "sexual freedom" with particular sensitivity and depth.
Due to the author's unflinching dedication to truthful portrayal of the facts, however ugly and unpleasant, we feel a moral obligation to state that we do not recommend this novel to the immature under-twenty-one reader who might gain the wrong impression by taking the details out of the context of the universally important whole. However, we, the Publishers, feel that this is definitely one book no socially-conscious, mature man or woman ought to ignore ... not if they're concerned about their country, their family, and most of all, themselves.
-THE PUBLISHERS...