 . . . Summer 1999
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Suggested Reading: Michigan Today takes notice of or reviews books by U-M faculty, graduates and students, and works published by the University of Michigan Press. |
THE BAND PLAYED DIXIE: RACE AND LIBERAL CONSCIENCE AT OLE MISS
By Nadine Cohodas '71, The Free Press, NY, 1997, $26
Although James Meredith became in 1962 the first African-American known to have
enrolled at the University of Mississippi, he was not the first to be part of the institution. Ole Miss's first Blacks came as slaves of the students and later as dining room staff, janitors and groundskeepers. The institution continues to wrestle with its heritage. It is the site of disputes over singing the school's unofficial song, "Dixie," at football games and controversies over "Colonel Rebel," the school mascot. Sketching the University's history, Cohodas uses the school as a barometer of race relations and shows how desegregation came not just as a result of Meredith's courage, but also of pressure by faculty and staff, by white students who opposed segregation with their editorials, and by African-American communities who staunchly supported the rights of their young people to attend the schools their taxes supported. –Cara J. Spindler '99. |
THE FALL OF A SPARROW
 By Robert Hellenga '63, Scribner [an imprint of Simon & Schuster], New York, 1998. $25.00
The main character of Hellenga's second novel is Woody, professor of classics at a
small Midwestern college. A daughter was killed in a bombing in Italy; his two remaining daughters have recently left home for work or college; his wife is joining a convent. The novel is not simply about grief or healing, it is about life and all its trappings: guitars, nuns, infidelity, higher-education politics, fatherhood, philosophy, courtroom proceedings, Italy. Each canvas is intimate: the bats in the family's farmhouse attic, making salad in Italy, the classroom discussions of The Odyssey. –CJS. |
PARADISE, NEW YORK
 By Eileen Pollack, Temple University Press, 1998, $27.95.
This novel by the director of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at U-M is
set in the Catskill resorts. Narrator Lucy Appelbaum, is determined to save her family's hotel from the fate of many of its brethren–decaying rubble burnt for insurance money. This humorous, honest, animated novel pops with the sharp, almost-acrid voices of its characters: crazy, grumpy Nana; Nat and Shirely Fidel with their blue-inked wrists; the Yiddish Literature Society (Communists in disguise); and Mr. Jefferson, the Black handyman. Their multilayered stories all wind through the eyes of Lucy, who pulls readers into the events of one summer at hand. –CJS. |
THE MICHIGAN GARDENING GUIDE
 By Jerry Minnich, U-M Press, 1998, $18.95.
Ever wondered about "loamy" soil or "clay" or "ph"? Ever bought seeds for early April planting, then looked out your window and saw snow? Jerry Minnich's guide will sort such things out for you. Articulate and clear, Michigan Gardening starts with soil and finishes with indoor gardening, running the spectrum of green-thumbing, including composting, intercropping, companion planting, organic fertilizing and boosting nitrogen levels; choosing the best flowers for Michigan soils; how to make a root cellar and how to choose an ornamental tree.–CJS. |
URBAN RENEWAL AND THE END OF BLACK CULTURE IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA
By James Robert Saunders '86 DA and Renea N. Shackelford, McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC, and London, 1998, $29.95.
The public's attention has been turned recently to the complexity of Thomas Jefferson's legacy in the area of race relations. This powerful oral history of Charlottesville's African-American neighborhood, Vinegar Hill, tells a story far more worthy of the limelight. Denied meaningful participation in the decision-making process and having no legal defense (chiefly because Blacks were still barred from the University of Virginia Jefferson founded), an ethnic community saw its residents, homes, businesses, churches and other social institutions uprooted and dispersed in the 1960s.
"They tell you, 'We're trying to renovate,'" former resident Raymond Bell told the authors. "It came along with urban redevelopment. And, of course, we refer to it as urban removal of Black people. And I may be paranoid about the subject, but I've always thought that that Vinegar Hill thing was by design to get rid of Black businesses along that street, along Main Street." This is a story that goes far toward explaining the blighted conditions and hopes in our nation's so-called inner cities.–John Woodford. |
HOT COAL, COLD STEEL
 By Stephen Crowley '97 PhD, U-M Press, 1998, $42.50.
Internal developments in the former Soviet Union have a profound impact on our world's political ecology. That makes this study in contrasts between the organized, active and militant coal miners in Russia and Ukraine and the same regions' passive and vacillating steelworkers of more than academic interest. Full of the voices and writings of various trade unionists, the book conveys the bewildering and chaotic course of grassroots politics, which roil around the issues of social justice, democracy and the market.–JW. |
BETWEEN THE ICEBERG AND THE SHIP
By Anne Stevenson, '54, U-M Press, paper, 1998, $15.95.
The deep sympathy and the tough-mindedness that illuminate Stevenson's poetry shine throughout these 17 essays. Winner of a Major Hopwood writing award at U-M in 1954, Stevenson addresses topics ranging from writing as a woman to her misgivings about post-modern literary theorizing. Poets she discusses include Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Seamus Heaney, Louis MacNeice and Dana Gioia. In speaking of the latter's poetry she said she "came up with the adjective beautiful–an epithet 20th-century criticism has smeared with suspicion. To speak of 'beautiful' poetry without sneering calls for an explanation." And she delivers a good one in a quick, sharp look at the "civil wars" among American poets from the 1960s to the '80s. For now, she says, the dust has "settled down finally in the halls of academe–where most American poets of all camps now find employment."–JW. |
A CREATION OF HIS OWN: TAPPAN'S DETROIT OBSERVATORY
By Patricia S. Whitesell '80 MA, '94 PhD, U-M Press, 1998, cloth, $48.
  Biography, history, architecture, science and art combine in this splendidly told and copiously illustrated account of U-M President Henry Philip Tappan's efforts to build the Detroit Observatory at the University in 1854. Tappan's achievement helped establish the tradition at the University of maintaining state-of-the-art capabilities in all scientific and intellectual endeavors–an abstract goal that required then, as it does now, many a concrete foundation. Whitesell has directed all proceeds from sales to the Observatory's endowment.–JW. |
66 GALAXIE
By m loncar '95 MFA, U. Press of New England, Hanover and London 1998, paper, $11.95.
 There are so many way stations in the American vastness that this travelin'-man poet seems barely to have time to relay the blips of sights and sounds he takes in, as he cruises wildly in his mythical Ford. He's too hurried to let periods and upper-case keys on his typewriter slow him down. Winner of the Breadloaf Writers' Conference prize for first books, poet-film maker m loncar is a master of surreal comedy and of wipe-that-smile-off-your-face very dark humor. The poem "repeating the word girl" resolves the life vs. art question with not a word to spare: writing a poem about the girl should never be better / than the girl / than being with the girl / don't write the poem about the girl / unless you'd really rather be with the girl. U-M English professor and poet Richard Tillinghast says that "as 66 galaxie glides past, its chrome flashing disconcertingly, one instantly recognizes it as a classic."–JW |
TRUE BLUE: MUSIC PERFORMED ON U-M CARILLONS
With U-M Carillonist Margo Halsted and others, CD, $10 + postage
The chiming carillons, especially the almost-daily lunchtime recitals, give the
University and Ann Arbor a thrilling aural signature. Burton Memorial Tower's 55-bell carillon has rung out since 1936. In 1996, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Tower on North Campus added a second U-M carillon, this one with 60 bells. From the first notes, this CD will transport those who've left back to Ann Arbor. The 16 pieces include U-M alum Chip Davis's title piece and five others written for the instrument. Other works include folk songs, a Bach chorale and transcriptions of works by Purcell, Albeniz, Sousa and Elbel ("The Victors"). Halsted and colleagues demonstrate the often-delicate beauty and wide emotional range of the world's most massive instrument. Make checks out to "University of Michigan ($10 and $3 for postage and handling) and send to: University Carillonist, 900 Burton Tower, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1270.–JW. |
PLEASANT WALKS AND DRIVES ABOUT ANN ARBOR
Judge Noah Cheever, Class of 1863, Bentley Historical Library, 1999, $5.95.
 Originally published in 1899 and now reissued as a handsomely illustrated 32-page bulletin, the 10 walks and carriage drives Cheever described 100 years ago are reprinted here. But this version, edited by English Prof. John Knott with undergraduate research assistant Alicia Lavalle '00 of Ann Arbor, also includes an updated section for each excursion to orient today's walkers, cyclists and drivers to changes in street and village names, topography and sight-lines. Just as Cheever's original was a century ago, this publication is a spur for local folks and visitors to get out and enjoy the scenery.–JW.
The booklet may be ordered from the Shaman Drum bookstore at (734) 662-7407, or email: books@shamanDrum.com |
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