Sparked by a flurry of e-mails among former classmates during John Kerry’s run for president, Douglas (The Game of Their Lives, 1996, etc.) explores what happened to St. Paul’s class of 1962.
In the spring of 2004, the author watched in amazement as his inbox slowly filled with names he hadn’t contemplated in more than 40 years. They had all attended St. Paul’s and were fascinated by the presidential bid of fellow alum Kerry, who hadn’t been well liked at the elite boarding school in Concord, N.H., but earned their admiration during the run-up to the election. Douglas fondly recalls the frantic e-mail exchanges that eventually prompted him to meet with a few of his former classmates, including Kerry. He discovered that St. Paul’s alumni had endured a broad range of experiences since graduating, and he eloquently chronicles those experiences. The narrative frequently returns to Arthur, a class clown mercilessly ridiculed at school who suddenly died while the e-mail reunion was in full swing. The outpouring of grief following his death makes for one of the most touching moments in a book saturated with the emotions unleashed by a group of middle-aged men’s miraculous reconnection. Douglas describes meetings between himself and several other graduates, including Chad Floyd, a successful architect and Vietnam vet whose wife was crippled by depression, and Philip Heckscher, a Harlem high-school teacher who took a long time coming to terms with his homosexuality. Surprisingly, the passages about Kerry are among the book’s least interesting. The author admits that their interview was perfunctory, full of rote answers that the senator from Massachusetts has trotted out on numerous other occasions. But it matters little, because the reunion he inadvertently sparked opens a gateway for Douglas to muse on such larger concepts as identity, loss, expectation, failure and idealism.
Likable and frequently moving.Pub Date: June 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4013-0196-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
Categories: EDUCATION
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The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
Categories: EDUCATION
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Inspirational lessons from the life of one tough teacher.
Today’s parents who lament their children stressing over tests may be horrified by the themes of tough love and tenacity offered by this biographical tribute to the late Jerry Kupchynsky, “Mr. K,” a gifted high school strings teacher from East Brunswick, N.J., whose exacting methods helped spawn the careers of generations of musicians and educators. Journalist Lipman and Kupchynsky, a violinist and Mr. K’s daughter, met as children when Mr. K joined his daughter’s exceptional talents on violin with Lipman’s on viola to form half of a string quartet that would also include Kupchynsky’s younger sister, whose disappearance decades later reunited the authors. The bond forged through the intensity of creating music is but one of the storylines running through this engrossing account of Mr. K’s life. Born in 1928 in the Ukraine, Mr. K endured a litany of wartime atrocities before immigrating to the United States as a refugee in 1946. But prior to fleeing to the U.S., it was the sound of a German soldier playing the violin that sparked his love for classical music. Surviving these early hardships helped instill in Mr. K an appreciation of adversity as a motivator, an unflagging belief in the value of hard work and a willingness to fight for the underdog. With a booming Ukrainian accent and “trim” mustache, Mr. K’s battle-ax demeanor and perfectionist drive struck both fear and a ferocious desire to succeed in the hearts of his pupils. One of his more unforgiving approaches involved singling out a section’s weakest player—“Who eez deaf in first violins?”—and forcing the guilty party to play alone with a stronger player until the weak one improved. While tactics like these may not have earned his students’ immediate devotion, they never forgot him and often found they could achieve more than they ever dreamed.
Moving and motivating—a must-read for practicing professionals and would-be musicians.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2466-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | EDUCATION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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