When The Plastic Age became a controversial best seller, Marks got hundreds of letters applauding him for tearing the veil of hypocrisy from around the depravities of college life, berat-ing him for spoiling the game by publiciz-ing it, or seeking further specification about what really happened to clean-cut boys sent to Ivy League colleges to be perfected as gentlemen." Marks, an instructor at Brown, was fired when the book was published, not, Cassill points out in his Afterword, because he had written a risqué and sensational book that tarnished Brown's reputation, but because he was the sort of person who would do such a thing. "Such delicate distinctions are requi-site in institutions cherishing a reputation for academic freedom."