Frank Yerby has complained that 99 44/100 of his historical research lands on the cutting-room floor at Dial Press. If this is true, critical readers should thank the man with the scissors for sparing 56/100 in Goat Song….

[Goat Song is] the sordid story of Ariston, a Spartan-Macedonian bastard, who struggles to achieve happiness in Athens in the fifth century B.C. (p. 51)

As the plot of Goat Song is predictably familiar to Yerby's fans, so the philosophy repeats his characteristic themes….

[As usual,] Yerby concerns himself with the problems of an oppressed minority group whom he never fails to include in his novels despite his once-ardent protests of his indifference to discrimination. In this instance, the oppressed are slaves, Helots, who, Yerby argues, have lost their sense of personal responsibility as a natural consequence of slavery. They must be taught to regain their dignity, to act wisely, to control their...