THE HOMECOMING GAME by Howard Nemerov...

THE HOMECOMING GAME by Howard Nemerov (University of Missouri Press: $12.95; 252 pp.). Nemerov’s novel about a battle over honesty and honor in a small-town college seems strikingly contemporary 35 years after its initial publication. Charles Osman, a decent, ordinary professor of history, finds himself the focus of a campuswide brouhaha when he flunks Raymond Blent, the school’s star football player--just before the homecoming game. Osman’s dilemma worsens as he struggles to find an honorable middle ground that will allow him to defy the pressure applied by the school administrators, yet avoid the moral inflexibility of a self-righteous fellow professor. The 1960 film “Tall Story” was based on this novel, which shouldn’t be held against it.