Word: novelized
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Evans seems to be drawn from Epps himself; Shadwell corresponds in word and deed to Henry Howells, a state senator who ran for governor in 1973 and is running again this year. His previous losing campaign clearly is the basis for this novel. And Epps's sympathetic portrayal of Shadwell--and therefore Howells--may well influence the voting in Virginia this fall...
...these two powerful characters the reader chooses to focus upon or identify with, The Shad Treatment can assume rather different kinds of significance. Evans's personal story is one with which many students--and even more of the recent alumni--can easily identify. Mac Evans, the narrator of the novel, describes in detail his disaffection with Harvard, its students, and especially its administration; he tells of being slowly but surely drawn first into sympathy with, and then active involvement in radical politics during the late '60s. He describes a famous scene outside Quincy House, when former Secretary of Defense Robert...
...brother's experience, as well as his father's career in politics and the foreign service that ended in self-imposed exile in South America because of charges that he had collaborated with communists, led Mac to suspect that politics eats good men alive. By the end of the novel he seems convinced...
Evans tries to tie his life back together, but without much success. His girlfriend during the campaign, the first woman he had been close to since college, decides to marry her old boyfriend. He feels alienated from his contemporaries in Richmond, and so leaves. As the novel ends, he finally falls asleep on a northbound train...
...does a long excerpt from Mac's father's testimony before a Congressional committee. But it reads quickly, and to some, may make a powerful argument for staying out of politics. It does, however, make a strong case for electing Shadwell governor this year, and the publicity the novel is receiving in the Washington and Richmond press may make that possible. The real question now is whether Epps will follow The Shad Treatment with another novel. His first is filled with as much promise as the candidate he describes...