The Northern Palmyra Affair

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Stated First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Octavo; pp; (vi), 310, (i), Author Bio; orange cloth, spine lettered in black in an unclipped dust jacket. The first novel from the pen of New York Times' correspondent Harrison Salisbury is the powerful story of the reactions of the men and women who are invited to the funeral of Leningrad sculptress who had shortly before been declared ideologically corrupt and banished as a state criminal. They know from the beginning the probable consequence of their attendance. All had believed in the Revolution and the bright new world it promised. In some the love for freedom is reborn and they give praise to their dead friend others the habit of obedience is well instilled and the fear great and they plot to betray the others. The absurd conversion by the Moscow secret police of a housing project into a conspiracy against the state brings to startling life Stalin's reign of terror, where mystery and imagination substitute for fact, and where guilt and innocence become notions. Here is a novel that will command the reader's interest and illuminate his understanding. His expert political reporting in dramatic terms.