The Lacuna

Part 6 is a series of journal entries, some of which are undated, letters, newspaper clippings, and a transcript of a House Committee hearing.

The FBI interview Mrs. Brown at Mrs. Bittle’s boarding house on May 4, 1949, about Shepherd’s suspected Communist ties. She is very upset. Afterward, Shepherd resolves to burn the rest of Shepherd’s notebooks to avoid any incriminating evidence. Mrs. Brown pretends to burn the notebooks. Arthur Gold convinces the publisher to publish Shepherd’s third book because they have already signed a contract, but the publisher will not be doing any publicity to sell it.

The public’s fear of the spread of Communism mounts as Mao Zedong takes over China and the USSR demonstrates they have an atomic bomb. A man suspected of being a Communist because he is thought to be Russian is shot in the nearby town of Oteen, North Carolina.

The national papers publish negative reviews of Shepherd’s third novel, The Unforetold, and misquote and misinterpret his books to accuse him of anti-American and pro-Communist sentiments. His book is banned at the local bookshop.

On December 22, 1949, Tom writes Shepherd that he has a job in advertising and that he is cutting ties with Shepherd for Shepherd’s purported anti-American beliefs.