Word: matt
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...Matt Jones is a run-of-the-Miltown adman who lives in a suburb of New York's Westchester County, where the only certainties are debt and taxes. Peaceable Lane is a newly planted colony of middle-class status creepers whose houses cost $30,000. "You can get some pretty odd ones at those prices," says a big-rich snob from nearby Grassy Tor, but Peaceable Lane's eleven families, ranging from doctors and lawyers to a union vice president and a radio commentator, are not notably odd. Matt and his neighbors are a standoffish, power-mower elite...
Rallying to the cry that property values will plummet, Matt heads a neighborhood group to buy the house and keep it out of the Negro's hands. Success proves bitter. Far from being a faceless figure of dread, the would-be purchaser turns out to be Lamar Winter, a gifted commercial artist and Matt's business teammate and friend for seven years. In a tormented about-face, and with the aid of an equally conscience-stricken Jewish lawyer confederate, Matt secretly sells Lamar the house...
...Lamar by a member of his own race, a Mr. Barton, who acts as a "blockbuster," attempting to spread panic among the whites in order to purchase their homes at distress prices and resell to Negroes at a fat profit. Before Peaceable Lane lives up to its ironic name, Matt, Lamar and the others lose more than property values, but gain something like a good conscience...
...novel skillfully by uncorking surprises in the relation of white with white and black with black. His analysis of race prejudice itself packs no surprises and probes no great psychological depth, since he is content to argue that hate, like love, is blind. Even near novel's end, Matt and Lamar are scarcely better brothers under the skin than Cain and Abel. They agree only that their children may learn to live together without racial conflict and deserve the chance...
Gunsmoke (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m ) In the season's premiere, Matt Dillon shoots his way into his sixth year...