Foreword
Though Janis Starr's important new novel will undoubtedly be received with shock in some critical circles, most astute readers will see that the alarming story she unfolds is merely a framework, however cleverly conceived, on which to hang a more simple and basic narrative about intimate communication between people. The fact that she chooses sexual intercourse as the means to portray this communication and that the characters she puts in such intimate touch by this means come from two generations, generations set at such irreconcilable odds at least in our troubled times is what lends this novel, not only its not inconsiderable shock value, but, the publishers feel, its importance.
The characters, vividly drawn as they may be, are symbols, nonetheless. It is to the author's credit that she does not allow the symbol to obscure the human character upon which it rests; it is by the same token, the bigger than life struggles in which she involves the characters which gives them their universal familiarity and appeal. She presents simply, vividly and unsentimentally the story of a junior high school nurse's attempt to reach an understanding and sense of mutual trust with the school's most arrogant and rebellious student, and, upon this, weaves an allegorical account, almost astonishing in its very credibility, of communication between the respective forces of revolution and authority.
We do not, however, wish to obscure or detract from the more basic and gripping human element of this story by our forays into its allegorical ramifications. But that can best be appreciated, not in analysis, but in the reading of the book itself with, we feel, at least the consideration of this one possible interpretation of the vivid and admittedly shocking sexual description that we have attempted to impart here.
-The Publishers