Foreword
R. Van Dorne, author of this topical and realistic novel, has brought out with clarity and lucidity the problems which present themselves to the women of our fighting men overseas. Although his study is confined to this particular topic, it, of course, exceeds - as does any work of art - the specific boundaries of its subject to reach a much more general applicability.
The problems Mr. Van Dome documents apply equally well to any woman who experiences long periods of isolation and worry - be she the wife of the traveling businessman, the long-haul truck driver, or the highly placed corporate executive. There has been a tendency in contemporary American society to forget that women, just as men, are physical human beings with the same emotional and physical needs. Perhaps this is accounted for - as many in the women's liberation movement would tell us - because this judgement both in the social and legal sense has always been made by men.
The timing in presenting a novel documenting this subject area is especially relevant since it comes during a period of increased social and economic freedom for the female sex. They are being judged ever more by the same standards of conduct as the heretofore masters, the male sex. Society has now recognized that women do have the same drives, and the same weaknesses, as men, and with this recognition comes also the same types of problems. Sometimes the greatest moral strength can be conquered by others who use unscrupulous means to achieve their ends. In such a situation the crucial moral strength of a person can become his own antagonist and be turned against him.
Mr. Van Dome has clarified this latter point vividly in the poignant story of "The Blackmail Club". In so doing, he has divided his portrayal into two of the key elements of the complex emotion love. First, he has isolated the element of loneliness, and shown how the main character Rosemary White, when dominated by this element, is slowly drawn through the evil designs of others into a situation which, under normal circumstances, she could easily control by the strength of her convictions against sexual promiscuity. , Rosemary does indeed recognize the escalating danger points as her position worsens with each further retreat she makes from conscience, but the only avenues of escape she finds open to her are more of those same retreats. Her judgement is dimmed by the overwhelming loneliness she feels, and the resultant physical stresses placed on her; then too her normally sharply critical faculties are dimmed by the use of alcohol and drugs. Yet the alcohol and drugs do not, in the final analysis, compel her to commit the acts she commits; rather, they function only to protect her concept of herself as a faithful wife from being utterly shattered during the most trying of circumstances. Ultimately what saves her is no outside force, but rather the very strength of her own moral character which, as the novel clearly demonstrates, cannot be diverted by any means, no matter how persistent or perverted.
The second element that Mr. Van Dome portrays so lucidly is the reaction of Rosemary to the threat of blackmail from Vance Winston. Although circumstances might well excuse her, it is apparent that she holds only herself to blame for the momentary weakness which allowed the possession of the blackmail films by Vance. She is so excusing of others - and conversely so critical of herself - that one cannot help sympathizing with her as she struggles within her own mind over the alternatives of submitting within her own mind over the alternatives of submitting to Vance's depraved demands and therefore forfeiting the shreds of self-respect she retains, or the total destruction of her husband, who is an absent and unimplicated party to the entire sorry affair.
Her bravery and unselfish dedication must be admired when her strength comes to play as she is confronted by these alternatives. She accepts almost stoically, as did Christian martyrs under Roman persecution, any punishment necessary to extricate the innocent party - her husband - from any damage which could result from her one fatal moment of weakness. It is a tribute to Mr. Van Dome's writing that in the highly varied emotional situations with which Rosemary is confronted, she remains fully a human being throughout. Her predictability is constant as her character to the very end, in the best tradition of the late Victorian English novels as she faces insurmountable odds - and emerges victorious over those individuals with less strength of purpose. In this way she is similar to David Copperfield in Charles Dickens' novel of the same name; but since Mr. Dickens' times the natures of the pitfalls and antagonists have changed, and in this sense Mr. Van Dome's study represents a needed updating. Rosemary is such a compassionate and selfless person that her acts in the end put to shame those devious individuals such as Vance who cause her to commit them. Particularly noteworthy in this connection is her brave acceptance of having sexual relations with the one person she most loathes - the half-idiot Clark - in order to save her innocent cousin from the same fate. The most critical reader will look in vain for any trace of a selfish motive in this.
Through its thoroughly human, sensitive approach, this novel speaks to everyone. Each of us - at least once in a lifetime - is compelled by the force of an emotion, be it loneliness or something else, to commit an act of which we are ashamed and which we would not otherwise commit but for the force of the emotion. And we should be judged by how and why we recover from the impact of such an act, rather than by the act itself considered in isolation from its context and consequences. This strength of recovery is, indeed, where human courage begins. Author Van Dome has demonstrated with compelling boldness the courage of one such person, Rosemary White, whose story we present in the following pages . . .
-The Publishers