SOURCE: "On Saying 'Boo!' to Geese," in his In All Conscience: Reflections on Books and Culture, Hanover House, 1959, pp. 108-12.

In the following essay, first printed in 1948 in America magazine, Gardiner commends Paton's artistic treatment of racial tensions in Cry, the Beloved Country, especially in comparison to contemporary trends in fiction.

At the risk, perhaps, of sounding like a proper Bostonian, I want to raise a standard to which I think all critics ought to be willing and eager to repair. I'd like to start a movement or found an organization for the Cessation of Adulation Heaped on Authors (generally Young Authors) Because They Write in a Bizarre, Shocking, Grotesque, and Violent Style of Bizarre, Shocking, Grotesque, and Violent Things. Will my fellow critics, of both the secular and the religious press, care to come in?

If they do join, they will find themselves in good company...