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    The Committee
    The Committee
    The Committee
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Committee

    Written by Sterling Watson

    Narrated by Mike Ortego

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In the late 1950s, Gainesville, Florida, seems to be a sleepy university town. Its residents live, by outward appearances, ordinary lives. And yet the town is far from ordinary. The most private acts of professors, students, townspeople rich and poor, and politicians are under the close scrutiny of a shadowy group of men—the Committee—who use the powers of government and the police to investigate, threaten, and control this increasingly fearful community.

    The Committee pits friends against friends and threatens careers and lives in a struggle for the soul of a town, a university, and an ideal. Based on actual historical events and set against the backdrop of political, cultural, and class turmoil, this is a story of love—both licit and hidden—war, friendship, betrayal, compromise, and finally the necessity to stand firm against the encroachments upon freedom by men who believe they are doing God’s and the government’s righteous work.

    Editor's Note

    Based on real life events…

    Based on real life events in the 1950s, Sterling Watson’s latest novel focuses on a Florida professor whose life is upended when he goes up against “The Committee.” This shadowy group of men seeks to discredit and remove from society all those who they view as dangerous, which includes homosexuals, civil right activists, communists, and other “subversives.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEverand Productions
    Release dateJul 28, 2020
    ISBN9781094410753
    Author

    Sterling Watson

    Sterling Watson is the author of eight novels, including Deadly Sweet, Sweet Dream Baby, Fighting in the Shade, and Suitcase City. Watson’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Georgia Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. He was director of the creative writing program at Eckerd College for twenty years and now teaches in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. Of his sixth novel, Suitcase City, Tom Franklin said, “If this taut literary crime novel doesn’t center Sterling Watson on the map, we should change maps.” Watson lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Committee is his latest novel.

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    Reviews for The Committee

    4.5/5

    338 ratings25 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Well written and very engaging. Sad we seem to be back in 1958 again.
    • 2/5
      While this book had a good plot, I felt it needed more editing. It was arduous to read, easy to put down and hard to pick up. I love the idea of a mid century Florida university having a committee to weed out the “considered unmentionables” of southern society at the time. Now living in central Florida, I thought more description would have made this more spell binding.
    • 4/5
      Bam! Akashic ends the year on a high note. I'm very familiar with the publisher's noir anthologies and love them, but hadn't read a novel put out by them before. So glad I got this introduction. While there was a number of big stretches that required a willing suspension of disbelief, Watson is a great writer. His pacing and character development was perfect to me and he gave just enough about each character to care without slowing down the story so much that you lost the thread of the narrative.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program.I enjoyed the Committee. I wasn't alive in 1958, but I felt like Watson's portrayal of it was real and accurate. The dialog throughout was authentic, and I found some bits of humor. A well reading book.My only (minor) concern was that the climax felt a little rushed. It could have been tenser or something, and with a better flow
    • 5/5
      This was an engrossing book. The characters were well developed and the story easy to follow on a personal basis and historical basis.
    • 5/5
      Excellent! Great characters, dialogue, plot - everything! Could not put down.
    • 3/5
      Book has a pretty slow pace but not a bad listen.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It makes you question your own perspective on tolerance.
    • 5/5
      Wow! That was a very good one. I’ll be looking for more of the similar quality plot, narrative and language.
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic book, laced with great subject matter and believable characters. The story focuses on historical fact that can be applied to any number of situations we are witnessing today. I would suggest this book to any of my contemporaries and encourage anyone to follow suit. The narrator does the Floridian accents of the late 50s justice and and I believe makes the book all the more enjoyable.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent book. I’ve “read” it twice but the second time I listened to it rather than read it. The narrator was fantastic. I hope I can find other books he’s narrated. After listening to it I realized how very professional and tight the story writing was. I plan to read all of Sterling Watson’s other books.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Book was fine except it stopped suddenly at partway through chapter 19 mid sentence! Very frustrating!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      So evocative of a time, place and culture that I initially thought it must've been written in the early '50s.
      You must relax into its pace a bit, in order to reap the full rewards of this novel.
      Excellent, balanced writing. What a contrast to my last randomly chosen thriller/mystery, which was written so appallingly that I wondered if it was some kind of joke.
      One of the pleasures of Scribd is the endless browsing; you feel that sense of excitement and liberty of a physical library, where you're free to peek into an endless number of novels, but reject them without consequence.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It was good, but there were a few inconsistencies. Still a good listen.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent book. I really wish as time progressed professors would have held onto the integrity of the timeframe this book takes place in.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The author presented the thoughts and actions of his characters as they existed in the 1950s without overlaying them with today's beliefs. He provided a good description of the social structure and hierarchy of the times.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I was a school child in those days, but I DO remember. How things have changed in 50 odd years. I believe Charlie Johns and his ilk, Harry Truman and his Viet Nam fiasco, McCarthy’s insanity combined for the perfect storm
      In a world of insanity and coming on of Communism in America (and the world) this little jewel causes one to re-evaluate their orientation in the world.
      A quiet intelligent motif is simply “ that which occurs in your bedroom is between you, your guests and God”.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Tom Stall, professor of English, finds himself at the center of an intricate drama in Sterling Watson's The Committee. The storyline was plausible, and unpredictable, so that at the end of each chapter I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen next. Watson uses a style that allows to see what Stall is thinking as the story moves along, a mechanism that I felt greatly added to what is already a good story. I greatly enjoyed reading this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Slow start, but after the first hour I was hooked.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Interesting in sight into university life in the American South in the 1950s

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An excellent portrayal of southern politics from not too long ago!! Even though it is a “fictional “ novel, the attention to detail an accuracy is eye opening! Great book!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Fabulous. An absolute “must read”. Compliments also to the narrator.

      5 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It was cool. Great plot, liked most of the characters. It’s set in the 50s, so be prepared for racism, homophobia, misogyny, jst everything offensive lol. I’d recommend it.

      4 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Be ready for the 50s south whole messed up attitude

      2 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Complete garbage. . . . . . . . .