Among our recommendations: a tale of an obsessive quest, confessions from an unusual mercenary, and a foray into early retirement.
By Brian Eule, Carolyn Craven, Blair Kloman, and Regan Eberhart
The Barnes and Noble across the street from New York's Lincoln Center arranged 190 chairs in its event space, but by the time Rodney Rothman '95 walked into the room to read from his newly released first book, Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement, about 100 additional people stood in the back and lined the side walls. Another 50 or so were on the outside looking in, spilling out from the event space into the rest of the store, only parting to let radio personality Howard Stern and his blond supermodel wife weave through at the last minute and join those standing in back.
Rothman's reading came at the end of a busy day for the 31-year-old Middlebury grad, who spent the morning fielding questions from Al Roker on the Today Show and the afternoon informing a group of 200 seniors in Queens what it's like to be retired in Florida.
Rothman knows, because that's what he did for five months. The idea for Early Bird, a mix of humor and memoir, arose when Rothman, the former head writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, found himself out of work at the age of 28. Trying to figure out what was next, he thought, "I'm Jewish, I'm probably going to end up in Florida. I might as well go and check it out." He selected a retirement village, rented a room from a retired piano teacher, and told everyone back home that he would write a book about the experience.
Rothman, who is single, spends much of the book discussing his struggle to meet the right woman (hint: it doesn't help when one chooses to live in a retirement
community with women 40 years one's senior), and his self-deprecation was on display for the crowd at Barnes and Noble. "My parents invited all my friends," he said. "They literally think this is my wedding. That's what's going on here,
in case you're wondering."
Looking a bit like Buddy Holly with his black-rimmed glasses and thick dark hair, Rothman read several passages from his book, provoking laughter from the crowd. Its style, by his own admission, is an extension of the student newspaper humor column Rothman wrote at Middlebury entitled "My Little Pony." Short chapters in Early Bird detail his various encounters at Century Village retirement community, where he failed in shuffleboard tournaments and sat poolside trying to follow discussions that jumped from doctors' visits to dining locales, without any transition.
"Apparently, none of us are going to get to retire anyway," he told the young New York crowd, "so at least I got to check it out."
—Brian Eule
Hired Gun
Part exposé, part memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins '67, darts around the globe from the 1960s to 9/11, pausing in many of the hot spots of the last 40 years: Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Colombia. Perkins brackets his book with trips to his beloved Ecuador, where he began his career in international development as a Peace Corps volunteer and currently visits as an ecotourism guide.
Perkins's thesis is that a corporate-governmental axis—the "corporatocracy"—has been systematically impoverishing these oil-rich, usually GDP-poor countries. In his job as chief economist for an engineering consulting firm, he was urged to fabricate absurdly optimistic forecasts for economic growth and electric power needs. His forecasts justified inflated lending that benefited the American corporations building the environmentally destructive projects; furthermore, he argues, high levels of indebtedness gave the U.S. government critical leverage over these countries.
A self-styled Dante of sorts, Perkins writes about his journey through an underworld of greed, violence, fraud, lust, flattery, theft, and treachery. He believes his superiors seduced him and manipulated his character weaknesses to mold the "economic hit man" he became. Cooking the numbers on GDP growth enriched his company and himself, as he rocketed from Middlebury dropout to the youngest partner in the history of his firm. One of his assignments involved procuring blond lovers for a Saudi royal; on another job, he smeared opponents to his dam project as communists and terrorists—all the while knowing they were just peasants fighting to preserve their livelihood. He is convinced that when a Third World leader refused to fall into the debt-development trap, the U.S. government turned to violence: assassination (Panama, Ecuador) or war (Iraq).
Clearly endowed with charm, self-confidence, and imagination, Perkins became an econometrics expert with minimal training, the confidant of Latin American leaders, and a successful entre- preneur for whom Congress wrote special tax breaks. But while jetting around the world, serving the interests of corporate clients, Perkins never stopped agonizing over his role in an elitist world. As the son of prep-school teachers in rural New Hampshire, he identified with the townies his parents felt superior to. At Middlebury, he felt alienated by wealthy classmates and quit school after a bar brawl. In every country he visited, he was drawn to friendly locals who, as Virgil guided Dante, gave him the inside story on American exploitation of their countries. In Indonesia, it was Rasy. In Panama, Fidel. In Iran, he met Doc, who was mutilated by the Shah's forces; in Colombia, the lovely Paula opened his eyes and prodded him to leave his prestigious job.
While lamenting how he sold out, though, Perkins kept on selling his services. After quitting the consulting firm, he was hired back as a freelancer—more money and less work. Later, he accepted a generous retainer from another company, in exchange, he believes, for not writing this book. He sold his green power company to the oil industry he excoriates. In the nineties he flipped to the nonprofit sector and began promoting anti-consumerist values and spiritual practices based on Amazonian cultures.
John Perkins flourished for decades in the networks of crony capitalism before meeting up again with the ideals of the 1960s. That's the long way around to paradiso.
—Carolyn Craven
Visiting assistant professor of economics
Royally Yours
A self-proclaimed Anglo-phile by age 12, Will Swift '69 has never strayed far from his preteen passion. As an adult, Swift embarked on a career as researcher and writer for Majesty magazine, while also founding the Royalty Bookshop in Manhattan,
the Royal Commemorative Association of North America, and Sceptre, a journal on royal history and collecting. But it was his practice as a clinical psychologist, specializing in couples therapy, that triggered his particular interest in political families—specifically husband- wife teams in the political and public spotlight—and he became increasingly intrigued by the effects of such a public life on an intimate marriage relationship.
His recent book, The Roosevelts and the Royals, is a historical account of the high-profile and politically charged friendship between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. At its simplest, this is a story of two couples and how their personal relationship shaped public bonds between two nations. Both FDR and King George were similarly paired with powerful, intelligent, and articulate wives, and Swift indicates the importance of their support behind the scenes. The book spans an enduring friendship between families that began in the 1880s, but the initial prewar visits between royalty and a president are the heart of the story.
With access to both the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle and the Franklin Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, Swift's research brings a personal perspective to a time so charged with public opinion. Poring through two decades of correspondence—particularly the wartime letters—Swift is able to see more clearly the intricate machinations between two families as reflected in the larger historical actions of their allied nations. Whether or not it was a "friendship that changed history," as the author proclaims in the subtitle, it was certainly a friendship that weathered the makingof history during turbulent times. Coupled with rare photographs that capture that intimacy during times of war, peace, revolution, and depression, Swift's engaging and ardent perspective reminds us that people, not events, make history.
—Blair Kloman, M.A. English '94
This Old House
In 1647, a shipbuilder and mill worker named Walter Hatch built a small house
in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and deeded it to his family in perpetuity. His will specified that the house was to be given "forever from generation to generation until the world's end never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever." And
so it was, for nine generations of Hatches.
Then, inexplicably, novelist Richard Warren Hatch sold the house, in 1965, to Ronald and Nina Messer. The reasons were never clear. The Messers took their role as caretakers of the house seriously (furniture and historical documents stayed with the house), enshrining the Hatch lore and trying to keep their home historically accurate.
Sarah Messer '88 grew up here, her childhood closely identified with her home's past. In her book Red House, Messer describes what it was like to live with another family's heritage, to be intimately familiar with pictures of someone else's ancestors, to have the past so present in the here and now that she even saw their ghosts. In her journey through the house's history, she interweaves the lives of each of the house's inhabitants with that of her own family.
As she peels back the layers of time, she discovers delightful bits of arcanna: In the mid-1600s, for example, bounty hunting was encouraged to curb wolf predation, and Walter Hatch, as constable, cut the ears off bounty wolves to prevent swindling. A century later, Israel Hatch Jr. painted every surface of the house inside with leopard spots and the outside red. Messer even provides the formula for red paint.
Messer's poetic, philosophical book is a loving restoration of 350 years of living, in which she shows how a house can not only contain but shape the lives of its inhabitants.
—Regan Eberhart
Fishing for Answers
What did George Perry of McRae, Georgia, do with his record-setting 22.4-pound largemouth bass after catching it on a rainy morning in 1932?
▫ ate it
▫ stuffed it
▫ sold it
▫ released it
What's a Lunker Bunker?
▫ sleep-away camp for slow fish
▫ an underwater canopy bed
▫ a sand trap for big-headed golfers
▫ an $18 million effort by ever-resourceful Texans to simply grow—not catch—the record-breaking bass
What does a Brooklyn-born, heavily tattooed, LAPD motorcycle cop do for fun?
▫ chase the bad guys
▫ chase a fish
▫ chase the competition
▫ all of the above
Find out the answers to these lurking questions—and more— in Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World Record Largemouth Bass, recently published by Monte Burke '94.
It's a spirited account of a handful of dedicated and, well, obsessivemenwho have committed their lives to the pursuit of a fish. The hours are long and the stakes are high—some have lost families as well as homes and jobs. But the fish of their dreams looms large. Not since George Perry hooked his dinner in a small oxbow of the Ocmulgee River in Georgia has anyone seen a largemouth of such largeness—and some even go so far as to question the veracity of Perry's unofficially recorded catch. An angler and outdoorsman himself, Burke deftly paints a mural of a potential myth and the mayhem it has engendered.
Just as these fervent characters track their elusive quarry with methodical clarity of purpose, so too does Burke track them. And even when their words and actions reach near poetic ridiculousness—as when one fanatic explains, "The world record is so important to so many people. That's why it's so important." Burke reflects their serious approach, as well as their passion. For Burke, every cast is a gesture of optimism. Clearly he's hooked. And you may be too.
—BK
How, Now, Mad Cow
Blair Kloman met with Nancy Means Wright, M.A. English '65, for a cup of tea on a chilly May afternoon. As well as discussing her latest Ruth Wilmarth mystery, Mad Cow Nightmare, they talked about exuberant dogs, unusual families, blooming lilacs, and the serenity that comes from creating control amid chaos through writing.
You've said that "we read—and write—to restore order to the chaos of our lives." How so?
Both reading and writing allow you to create a haven of your own. Life can be completely haywire around you, but when you're immersed in a story, that becomes your world. I'm a very visual person, so I see the characters in my mind, as if they're acting on a stage. I may not always know exactly what they're going to do—even when I'm writing them—but in the end things resolve. There's closure, and order prevails.
And yet the ending of your latest Wilmarth mystery is different from the others in that there is no "happy ever after."
Yes, this ending is different, but it really had to be because of the issues at hand—mad cow disease and the federal government's involvement, and two murders rooted in past abusive relationships. It would have been unrealistic for it all to have worked out too neatly. I didn't know it would turn out that way. It just did, and that's how it had to end.
You don't outline your books before writing?
No, I don't. In fact, when my editor wanted an outline for Stolen Honey, I had to write the whole draft first. Usually, I get an idea in my head—from a newspaper article or a story—and I dive in and start to write and see what happens. The characters do their thing and I pay attention. They lead me through. Often I don't even know who the villains will be until the end, and then I go back and plant the clues and rewrite here and there.
Where did this latest story come from?
I've always had concern about the plight of farmers—they are my family, friends, and neighbors here in Vermont. And my protagonist, Ruth, is a farmer herself. The mad cow issue is one I feel strongly about. It—or the fear of it, rather—can ruin a farm. I followed the news of outbreaks in England, and then, a few years ago, more than 350 sheep were destroyed right here on farms in East Warren, because U.S. officials feared they might be infected with mad cow disease. None of the evidence was conclusive. I met with one of the farm families, and they were just devastated. Later, I saw a newspaper story about a woman in a Toronto hospital who died after being treated with instruments supposedly infected with the human form of mad cow, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The hospital put an emergency call out to all patients who had been in the hospital at that time. There was a real fear that others were infected. Soon these two emotional stories began to take shape in my mind as one. So much of fear comes from spreading fear and not from any "reality" at all.
What about these Irish travelers who seem to multiply by the day in Ruth's farmyard?
Colm, Ruth's partner and lover, is Irish American, and so I thought it'd be fun to explore that side of his heritage through these Irish travelers who have made their way north from the Carolinas. The characters are distantly related to Colm, but he's sympathetic to them and invites Darren to come as Ruth's farmhand. Darren also happens to bring his extended family of eccentric traveling characters, and there the story begins.
Is there a great deal of pressure to continue a series like this for your fans?
Well, this whole thing started with a newspaper article I read about two elderly farmers being robbed and the culprits being caught because the money they stole smelled like "barn"—that was the premise for the first book, Mad Season. I never imagined it would become a series. But I seem to be a magnet for quirky stories, so I'll keep going as long as there are stories to tell.
Life, Interrupted
A second novel in the "Snow Island" trilogy considers a young woman's life when family truths get in the way.
Somewhere along the coast of New England, a ferry makes its way, twice daily, between the fictitious mainland town of Barton and an isolated two-mile strip of land called Snow Island. Sometimes the ferry is late—sometimes it doesn't come at all. You can't always count on things to go as planned.
Though the island and its people are the creations of author Katherine Towler, M.A. English '84, the lessons learned about life are achingly real. Evening Ferry is the second novel in Towler's "Snow Island" trilogy. The novel is set in the summer of 1965, and its protagonist, 33-year-old Rachel Shattuck Ellis, is about to discover that so many things in her life did not unfold as hoped.
Recently divorced and still grieving the death of her mother, Rachel has cut herself off from her childhood home on the island. But after her father is injured in a carpentry accident, Rachel finds herself pulled back to the island life she's worked so hard to escape.
Loosely based on tiny Prudence Island in Narragansett Bay, off Rhode Island, Snow Island is typical of its New England inspiration. Winter months are cold and long, while summer months feature the fervent activity of the people "from away" who crowd the ferry from May to August. Locals intuitively know each other's business, and few personal decisions are made without collective opinions being shared around the wood stove in the general store. It's into this world that Rachel returns—and discovers truths about her past that inevitably shift the course of her future.
Towler began her trilogy with Snow Island, a novel that traces the lives on the island through the pre- and postwar days of the forties. In Evening Ferry, many of the first novel's characters reappear, and the shadow of Vietnam hangs heavily. The third novel, Towler says, will take place in the nineties; the impact of war—most likely the first Gulf War—will continue to be a theme. "Ultimately, I am trying to make a case against war by showing its devastating effects on one small community far removed from any battlefield," she says. "These books are my plea for human beings to wake up and find another way."
—Blair Kloman,
M.A. English '94