Children of the Stones protection. The villagers then turned to stone when they looked at the beam of light from Hendrick's house. Professor Brake and Matthew attempted to save with them their close village friends Margaret and her daughter Sandra, but despite warnings to them not to look back as they were running away, in a scene with eerie similarities to Lot's wife in the Bible they both did look back at the light and met the same fate as the other villagers. The professor and his son then escaped to the Sanctuary, just as the ancient travellers had done in the original circle.
The City and the Pillar of which is reinforced by the novel's epigraph from the Book of Genesis 19:26 "But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt." "The City and the Pillar" sparked a public scandal, including notoriety and criticism, not only since it was released at a time when homosexuality was commonly considered immoral, but also because it was the first book by an accepted American author to portray overt homosexuality as a natural behavior. The controversial reception began before the novel hit bookshelves. Prior to its even being published, an editor at EP Dutton said to