Dr Lyle Owen

The Professor of Heterodoxy Dr Lyle Owen

The Professor of Heterodoxy is the first and only novel written by our late father, Dr. Lyle Owen. Written in the late 1950's it was sadly never published. In recognition of the innate worth of the book and as a tribute to our father we have now scanned and digitized it from his original type-written manuscript to enable its long overdue publication.

Semi-autobiographical, the book details the career of Solomon Socrates Smith, a brilliant young scholar who by luck and guile becomes the Professor Of Heterodoxy at a typical Midwestern University. There it follows his adventures as he struggles against the forces of orthodoxy, prejudice, academic stupidity and the political correctness of the times.

Voltairian in tone, full of intelligence, clever word play, multiple entendre, hidden meanings, biting sometimes dark satire, and repressed sexuality, the book is a wonderful commentary on Midwestern culture in the late 1950's that is perhaps even more relevant today.

The book is filled with profound, insightful, and humorous analyses of Christianity, Marx, college football, un-Americanism, academic politics, modern art, the advertising industry, the irrational nature of prejudice, the Socratic method, and much much more.

Throughout the book this Socratic gadfly continually forces a wide variety of people to confront their own irrational beliefs through one interesting and humorous situation after another, and in the process manages to learn a few lessons of his own.

All in all this is a wonderful novel that deserves to be read by anyone interested in the virtues of free speech, free thought, and the enduring humor of the irrational.