School for Eternity

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1941). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [nice copy with minimal shelfwear, just a touch of light staining along the top edge of the front cover; the jacket is moderately edgeworn, with a bit of paper loss at the spine ends and a short closed tear at the top of the front panel]. Novel set on a fictional island in the West Indies, where "a motley group is summoned to a strange festival," held in a castle-like structure called the Citadel, "as watchfully brooding as its master, the incredible Count Girghiz," aided by his disciple, one Father Damon. Over the course of three days -- Easter weekend, in fact, which probably has some symbolic significance -- "we explore their lives; and through them a hundred other lives as well." Here's how a contemporary newspaper review describes the goings-on: "To provide Easter week-end diversion for the count, Damon rounds up eight strangers in the town of San Liguori and invites them to the Citadel so that he and Girghiz may study personalities. In that week the pasts of all are opened up to the mental explorers. The frustration of all their lifetimes are thrown off, and the skies of the future begin to look brighter. But the Easter sun shines hot and bright and still in the sky, and the night comes black and breathless. These are preludes to an earthquake and eternity." .