"Why Do the Heathen Rage?" Summary

A man named Tilman has a massive stroke in the state capitol and spends two weeks in the hospital, arriving home by ambulance. His only son, Walter, twenty-eight-years-old, greets him and stares into his twisted paralyzed face. Tilman's wife is fraught with fear concerning how the inept Walter is going to take over running the place, and how he will tell the Negroes what to do; he admits that is one thing he cannot possibly do. His mother is worried about Walter having enough backbone to do anything right, remembering the types of books he likes to read. One in particular disturbs her because the book was written in the year 370, about a man who became the bishop of Altinum. It occurs to the mother the general in the book her son is...