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April 28, 2011

Rubenfeld '80 pens historical thriller about a terrorist attack

Jed Rubenfeld ’80 (Gianluca Battista)

New book: The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld ’80 (Riverhead Books)

The author: A professor at Yale University Law School, Rubenfeld is an expert on constitutional law. He also is a novelist. As a philosophy major at Princeton, he wrote his thesis on Sigmund Freud, who figures in both his new novel and his 2006 book The Interpretation of Murder.

The plot: This historical mystery novel begins with New York’s first terror attack – not the one on Sept. 11, 2001, but the one that occurred Sept. 16, 1920, when a bomb exploded on Wall Street. Four hundred people were killed or injured in an event that remains unsolved. In this story that blends fact and fiction, war veteran and surgeon Stratham Younger, his friend New York police Captain James Littlemore, and Colette Rousseau, a French chemist whom Younger met during the war, follow a mysterious trail of evidence that takes them from Paris to Prague, and from the Vienna home of Sigmund Freud to Washington, D.C., in finding those responsible for the attack.

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April 22, 2011

Talking gargoyles, 'weretigers,' and a magical side of Princeton

Sarah Beth Durst ’96’s latest work of fantasy fiction for teens is set at Princeton Reunions. (Adam Durst '96)

A Princeton connection turned out to be key to launching Sarah Beth Durst ’96’s writing career. She had penned drafts of novels and shopped them around for about 10 years, collecting a slew of rejection letters. But her luck changed when she connected with Andrea Somberg ’01, a literary agent, in 2006. Within weeks of signing with Somberg, Durst had secured offers from several publishers for Into the Wild, a novel about a girl who must battle witches and fly griffins to rescue her mother and save her town from becoming a fairy tale kingdom. They got the news of the offers the week before Reunions.

Since then, Durst has written three other novels — all fantasy fiction for teenagers. Her latest, Enchanted Ivy, published last fall by Margaret K. McElderry Books, is set at Princeton during Reunions.

The coming-of-age novel follows Lily Carter, an eleventh-grader who attends her grandfather’s 50th reunion. His friends tell her that if she passes a secret legacy test, she will win automatic admission to the University. Lily takes on the challenge and quickly stumbles on an alternate Princeton — a magical and dangerous place where gargoyles come to life and “weretigers” and dragons roam.

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April 19, 2011

Pun book by Delacorte '67 and Witte '66 'reterns' to print

New book: The Book of Terns, by Peter Delacorte ’67 and Michael C. Witte ’66 (Ternaround Press)

The book: More than 30 years ago, Delacorte, a San Francisco writer, teamed up with Witte, an artist and illustrator, to create a book of wacky illustrations of puns on the bird-word “tern.” Their humorous book was published by Penguin Books in 1978 and garnered great reviews: The New York Times called it a “page terner.” The original edition of The Book of Terns was reprinted several times through the 1980s. Recently Delacorte and Witte decided to publish a new edition with an updated cover and several new illustrations, including Internet.

Peter Delacorte ’67, left, and Michael Witte ’66 (Courtesy Peter Delacorte, Michael Witte)

The authors: Delacorte also is the author of the novel Time on My Hands, which was a finalist for the United Kingdom’s Arthur C. Clark Science Fiction Award, and is a former Jeopardy! champion. Witte’s comic illustrations have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and PAW, among other publications.

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April 14, 2011

Gott *73 and Vanderbei size up the universe

J. Richard Gott *73 (Denise Applewhite)

New book: Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspective, by J. Richard Gott *73 and Robert J. Vanderbei (National Geographic)

The authors: A professor of astrophysics at Princeton who studies cosmology and the theory of general relativity, Gott has been interested in astronomy since he was 8 years old. “What I found most intriguing were the sizes of the planets and the sun,” writes Gott, whose map of the visible universe is reproduced in Sizing Up the Universe. Vanderbei is chairman of Princeton’s Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering and an amateur astronomer who takes pictures of objects in the sky outside his home using telescopes, digital cameras, and a computer. “His photographs of astronomical objects taken right from his backyard rival the best images taken from observatories,” notes Gott.

The book: Written for armchair astronomers and people who study the sky alike, Sizing Up the Universe aims to help readers get a sense of the size and shape of the universe and the objects within it – stars, planets, galaxies — as well as the distance between objects and how far away they are from Earth. Fun facts are sprinkled throughout the book — for example: “Among the terrestrial planets in our solar system, Venus is the closest to the size of Earth — only about 5 percent smaller.” Highlighted by stunning photographs — many taken by Vanderbei, including the Western Veil Nebula, known as the Witch’s Broom — the book provides a visual guide to what’s out in space, describes how astronomers measure objects and distances, and chronicles recent discoveries.

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April 7, 2011

Kluger '56 explores tragic clash between white settlers and Native Americans

Richard Kluger ’56 (Michael Lionstar)

New book: The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek: A Tragic Clash Between White and Native America, by Richard Kluger ’56 (Alfred A. Knopf)

The author: A social historian who looks at the complex social and historic fabric of America, Kluger has written about the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation (Simple Justice), the rise and fall of the New York Herald Tribune (The Paper), the cigarette industry in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes, and America’s land grab (Seizing Destiny). Kluger also is a novelist and when he began working on his latest book, he thought he was going to write a historical novel set during the “frontier days of the Old West, when life brimmed with peril and where the line between virtue and villainy at times grew indistinguishable,” he writes in the preface to his book.

The book: His latest book is not a historical novel, however. Instead with the help of a librarian, he found an “all but forgotten episode” involving a notorious murder conviction of a Native American tribal leader, Leschi, who was executed in 1858 in the Washington Territory. He tells the story surrounding that case — involving a fierce war between the Nisqually tribe and the territory’s militia and army and centering on two leaders: Washington’s first governor, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who aimed to persuade the Native Americans to turn over their lands to the government; and Leschi, chief of the Nisqually tribe who objected to the Medicine Creek Treaty and sparked the native resistance movement.

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March 31, 2011

Alpert '82 pens another scientific thriller

New book: The Omega Theory, by Mark Alpert ’82 (Touchstone)

The author: A contributing editor at Scientific American, Alpert specializes in explaining complicated scientific ideas to readers. At Princeton, he majored in astrophysics, but left science for poetry, earning an M.F.A. at Columbia University, before entering journalism. His first novel, Final Theory (2008), was a thriller about Albert Einstein and the quest for the holy grail of physics, the Theory of Everything. In the sequel, The Omega Theory, he weaves religious issues, terrorism, science, and history.

The plot: The novel opens with news reports that Iran has tested a nuclear bomb. And scientific instruments indicate that for a brief moment the very fabric of the universe was disrupted, dislocating the dimensions of space and time. Meanwhile David Swift, a science historian at Columbia University, and his wife, the physicist Monique Reynolds, find out that their adopted son — Michael Gupta, an autistic teenager who is a descendant of Albert Einstein — has been kidnapped by a cult militia. Gupta has memorized Einstein’s final theory, the equations that could explain all the forces of nature. Swift and Reynolds join forces with an FBI agent to track down the cult’s messianic leader and realize that there’s a connection between the kidnapping and Iran’s nuclear blast.

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March 25, 2011

Aubry *03 looks at why Americans read novels

When Timothy Aubry *03 was a graduate student in English at Princeton, he wondered what it was that originally made him passionate about books. He realized that reading was a type of therapy for him — a purpose that scholars generally do not take seriously, he says. In Reading as Therapy: What Contemporary Fiction Does for Middle-Class Americans (University of Iowa Press), Aubry takes that impulse to read for therapy seriously and examines several novels published since 1995, including Paradise, The Kite Runner, and The Pilot’s Wife. He argues that contemporary fiction serves primarily as a therapeutic tool for lonely, dissatisfied middle-class American readers, and that contemporary literature’s appeal depends on its ability to perform a therapeutic function. An associate professor of English at Baruch College, Aubry spoke with PAW’s Katherine Federici Greenwood.

Why do Americans read contemporary fiction?

Readers themselves might not put it in these terms, but clearly they are looking for characters that they can relate to, that they can identify with. Characters who offer them models for how to live their lives or how not to live their lives. And they are looking to have an experience of empathy or compassion. And all of this serves a therapeutic function.

What do you mean by “therapeutic function”?

Most therapists claim they help people manage or alleviate their psychological dysfunctions, but I also would argue that therapy gives people a language that allows them to understand their inner life and their problems. It gives them a way to make their problems feel real and concrete and gives them a vocabulary that allows them to communicate their internal issues with other people. Especially in the last 50 to 60 years, novels focus very much on psychological interior, the inner life of their characters, and so novels do a similar kind of work for readers.

In America we have this intense and elaborate celebration of the personal sphere. And related to this idea is Americans as this bunch of navel-gazers, which makes them more likely to treat literature as a kind of therapy. I argue that this therapeutic function doesn’t necessarily have to entail a self-centeredness or rejection of social responsibility.

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March 17, 2011

Picoult '87 explores what it means to be gay today in new novel

New book: Sing You Home, by Jodi Picoult ’87 (Atria)

The author: Known for exploring topical social issues — from teen violence and medical ethics to sexual abuse — and wrapping them in absorbing page-turners, Picoult has penned 18 novels. Many of them explore the connections between a parent and child. In her latest tale, she examines the desire for children, the definition of family, and the challenges same-sex couples face in marriage and adoption.

The plot: After years of infertility and miscarriages, Max and Zoe’s strained marriage falls apart and the two find different ways to cope. After the divorce, Zoe immerses herself in her career as a music therapist and eventually finds new love with Vanessa, a guidance counselor. Max drinks too much until he joins an evangelical Christian Church. After Zoe and Vanessa marry, Zoe asks Max to use their frozen embryos to start a family with Vanessa. The request starts a legal battle when Max sues for custody of the embryos.

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March 10, 2011

Apostolidis '86 examines Mexican meatpackers' lives and political activism

Ordinary Americans have a lot to learn about how democracy should work from a group of Mexican immigrants and activists who mobilized a workers movement at a cattle-slaughtering and beef-processing facility in eastern Washington State, argues Paul Apostolidis ’86 in his book, Breaks in the Chain: What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America About Democracy (University of Minnesota Press). The immigrants, who suffered from dangerous working conditions, conducted a strike in 1999 at the facility and waged a successful campaign to take over their local union and make it more accountable to workers. A political science professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., Apostolidis spoke with PAW’s Katherine Federici Greenwood.

What do meat processors do at work?

It is really shocking. … My friend who was one of the organizers of the union said he had never seen so many people working so hard and sweating so profusely in freezing cold conditions as they did inside the plant. That’s because of the speed of production. … The chain is the giant mechanical apparatus that moves the chunks of cattle carcass around the inside of the plant. The workers stand side-by-side at their workstations and they’ve got a hook in one hand. With the hooks they grab a hunk of carcass off of the chain and slap it down on the worktable in front of them. They have a knife in the other hand and they make one particular cut and then they hang it back on the chain and grab the next piece.

All of these work motions have been engineered down to seconds. In theory it is a tightly organized, scientifically run and efficient process. In practice what I’ve found [through the interviews he did nine years ago for the book] is there’s a tremendous amount of chaos on the inside of the plant. Because workers are getting injured so frequently, at any given workstation a job that should be done by three workers is being done by two.

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March 3, 2011

Itzkoff '98 reflects on his relationship with his father

Dave Itzkoff ’98 (Earl Wilson)

New book: Cocaine’s Son: A Memoir, by Dave Itzkoff ’98 (Villard)

The author: A culture reporter for The New York Times and the lead contributor to its ArtsBeat blog, Itzkoff wrote his first memoir, Lads (2004), about the behind-the-scenes goings on at men’s magazines and his work experiences at Details and Maxim. In his new memoir, he delves into his relationship with his father, who was addicted to cocaine for the first 25 years of Itzkoff’s life, and explores the anger, guilt, forgiveness, and love between them.

The book: A fur merchant, Itzkoff’s father struggled with drug addition while raising two children in New York. Itzkoff shares the confusion, arguments, and twists and turns of their relationship — from Itzkoff’s feeling the sting of an absent father and his parents’ fights, to episodes when his father would confess his sexual anxieties and a time when Itzkoff had to rescue his father (strung out on cocaine) from a flophouse in the New York. Itzkoff also describes his own drug use and loneliness in college. Eventually, father and son entered therapy and travelled together so Itzkoff could learn more about his father’s past. Ultimately, with Itzkoff’s marriage, the author seems to come to a new understanding of his father.

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February 24, 2011

Masur *85 writes concise history of Civil War

Louis P. Masur *85 (Nick Lacy)

New book: The Civil War: A Concise History, by Louis P. Masur *85 (Oxford University Press)

The author: A professor in American institutions and values at Trinity College in Harford, Conn., Masur has written about Bruce Springsteen’s seminal album, Born to Run (Runaway Dream); events that occurred in the year 1831, marking a turning point for the young American nation (1831: Year of Eclipse); and a photograph taken in 1976 at a Boston rally against forced busing (The Soiling of Old Glory). In his latest book, the historian explores the causes and aftermath of the war whose opening battle, the Battle of Fort Sumter, occurred 150 years ago this April.

The book: This 94-page history seeks to explain, writes Masur, “what happened, how it transpired, and what it all meant.” He explores the war’s origins; the major political, social, and military events of the period; and the war itself: “its aims and methods, its costs and its results, its effects home and abroad,” he writes. Throughout the book, Masur focuses on two themes: How the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all-out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and how the conflict became a battle to abolish slavery.

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February 17, 2011

Whelan '99 gathers advice for young adults

When Christine B. Whelan ’99’s college students began coming to her dismayed with the tough economic times, the difficulty of landing jobs, and their own problems with procrastination and stress, she looked to the hundreds of self-help books on her shelves. A visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh who studies the self-help industry, she culled the best advice from self-help gurus and then had her students test that advice in their lives to see what worked. The result: Generation WTF: From “What the #%$&?” to a Wise, Tenacious, and Fearless You (Templeton Press). Last semester, her students even road tested galleys of her book. With places to record goals and quizzes along the way as well as an interactive website (generationwtf.com), the book helps readers examine their values, set and achieve goals, save money, and improve their relationships. Whelan spoke with Katherine Federici Greenwood.

Whom did you write your book for?

This is geared toward a generation [18- to 25-year olds] that feels like they have been baited and switched. They were raised in a time where everything seemed to continue to go up, whether it was the housing market or the stock market. And they also were raised with very big and bright expectations for their futures. … Starting around 2008, my students at the University of Iowa came to me and said, “WTF”: “What happened to the jobs?” Or, “I had a summer internship lined up. I got fired before my first day.” Or on the college level, “I worked really hard to get here, but now I’m having all kinds of problems with procrastination. I feel like I’m a little bit burned out. …” They are coming of age in a tough economy but without having been taught the life skills they will need to succeed in these hard times.

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