Word: freesmith
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...this first-novel winner of the Houghton Mifflin award, Author Burdick gives a reverse twist to the cozy U.S. sociological convention that coarse, conservative fathers produce sensitive, nonconformist sons. It is a study of Mike Freesmith, whose father was a radical so militant he once smashed the family Christmas tree into bourgeois smithereens. To contrast his old man, Mike determines to become a "big wheeler and dealer." He starts rolling as a clean-limbed, sexually limber nihilist on a surfboard off the coast of South ern California. He is supposed to be getting an education; instead he is educating...
...time he is set to mastermind the election for governor of a drunken windbag named John Cromwell, Freesmith has developed into a full clinical picture of an icy-hearted opportunist in action. He figures that fear plus hate equals power. By manipulating the fear of poverty of California's "senior citizens" and exploiting general hatred of Communism, he hopes to become the real governor of California. In a not quite credible solution, his pal Hank removes the hard hand of Mike Freesmith from the public weal...
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