The seven minute Irving Wallace's most controversial and explo¬sive novel to date, certain to stir up national debate from the moment of its publication. It opens with the arrest of a bookstore owner for selling a copy of "the most obscene piece of por¬nography written since Gutenberg invented moveable type." This notorious, long-banned work which tells the thoughts inside a woman's head during the seven minutes she is engaged in sexual intercourse) is condemned under the Cal¬ifornia Criminal Code for obscenity and is also charged with having driven a respectable college boy to commit a brutal rape and murder.
Overnight, as the battle lines are drawn, the defenders of free speech rallying against the
"legions of censorship, the Los Angeles obscenity trial erupts into an international cause celebre. In the center of the storm is Michael Barrett, a young lawyer who unwillingly takes the case for the defense and pits himself against an honest but ambitious district attorney, who is backed by relentless and powerful political forces.
Behind the scenes, at risk of his life, Bar¬rett seeks the crucial truth about the mysterious and long dead expatriate author of the book on trial-a book that has become a rallying point in the fight for literary and sexual liberation as well as the symbol of Barrett's own maturity as a man. In his dangerous quest to save the book, the trial, his own future, Barrett crosses the paths of a galaxy of unforgettable characters-includ¬ing the leering producer of filthy stag films, a sexually permissive society girl, a drunken Greenwich Village poet, the prelate representing the Vatican's Index of Prohibited Books. Gray book boards with gold colored lettering...book measures 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches...638 pages...publishers Simon and Schuster,,book club edition.