THE LAST DAYS: A Son's Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of the New South

Marsh's father was a Baptist minister in Laurel, Miss., a typical Southern town that was also home to Sam Bowers, Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan. In October 1967, the same day that jury selection began for the trials of 18 local men charged with the murders of three civil rights workers, Bob Marsh "gave a talk on Christian character" with the "murders and the trials... the furthest thing from his mind." Later, when the author was a student at Harvard, he wished his father "had emerged as a freedom fighter... and confronted the Wizard with his evil ways." To assuage his guilt by association, Marsh used to tell his friends a made-up story along those lines. In this intimate and well-written memoir, Marsh (God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights), professor of religion at the University of Virginia, tries hard to tell the true story of his father's moral torpor. Instead, what he offers is an apologia for a minister who "made compromises [and] said what he needed to say to keep his pulpit," who Marsh nevertheless believes "pointed us toward a more decent religion at the same time." It's the sort of memoir one writes for one's children, grounded in the need to explain how their grandfather happened to present the Jaycee man of the year award to Clifford Wilson just a few hours before Wilson was arrested as "the White Knights' hit man in the firebombing death of Vernon Dahmer." Still, Marsh has produced an often absorbing read about a high-profile murder trial, a family caught between two worlds and the remorse he carries with him to this day. (Mar.)

Forecast:With an eight-city author tour, primarily across the South, this devastating addition to civil rights literature will provoke strong and divided reactions from a wide spectrum of readers.