It doesn’t take much to destroy careers, pull families apart and ruin lives. As author Julian Earl Farris states: “A mix of ignorance and hatred, combined with an insatiable lust for power, will suffice. And in Florida, circa 1958, that unholy mix fermented in the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, a.k.a. the Johns Committee.”

Family bonds, created by blood and by choice, bring both acceptance and redemption in Julian Farris’s new novel, The Sin Warriors (Lethe Press), a drama that unfolds against a backdrop of bigotry and intolerance, and based on actual events that follow a McCarthy-era demagogue who uses the threat of Communism to persecute homosexuals and ruin the lives of Florida college students and employees.

“Using blackmail, intimidation and coercion, the Johns Committee—led by segregationist state senator Charley Eugene Johns—managed to ‘disappear’ more than 300 suspected homosexual students, faculty and administrators from Florida’s public colleges, universities and schools,” says Farris.