A rambling account of life in the ivory tower, sometimes engrossing but often unfocused.
A political science professor looks back on a journey through academia accompanied by God in this sprawling memoir.
Van Der Slik presents a soup-to-nuts survey of his life, from his boyhood in Kalamazoo, Michigan, through his retirement in Florida and subsequent world travels. In between, he recaps a long career as a professor and administrator at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Sangamon State University in Springfield, Illinois, and as a dean at Trinity Christian College, near Chicago. He gives brief, sketchy accounts of his research interests in lawmaking decisions and processes in Congress and the Illinois Legislature, which he studied with the help of pioneering computer models, as well as other professional pursuits, such as hosting a radio interview series on politics. But the author’s focus is less on political science than on the nuts and bolts of being an academic. He reminisces about applying for university jobs; developing courses with newfangled graphics technology and improving his and others’ teaching skills; supervising students and interns; starting new programs, including a nursing baccalaureate at Trinity; and serving on search committees, creating brochures to help people with newly minted departmental Ph.D.s find jobs, and hiring secretaries. Along the way, he discusses his private life: dating and wedding his wife, Bonnie; repeated house-hunting projects; the joys and anguish of fatherhood; and his vigorous participation as a worshipper and elder in Christian Reformed and Presbyterian churches. Throughout the book, he celebrates teachers, colleagues, and bosses who mentored him and mines insights into pedagogy and leadership. (Stuck at a repair shop while his car got fixed, he observed “how the more experienced mechanics helped the others—not doing their work, but clearly coaching them.”)
Van Der Slik’s memoir paints a remarkably full and detailed portrait of the work of an academic. He pens some colorful, dramatic episodes that limn the currents of ideological tension that can course through seemingly placid institutions—he left Trinity, he avers, after the new college president refused to hire a well-qualified sociology professor because the man was not entirely certain that God created Earth in six days—or the vehement office politics that can poison them. (At one conference of administrators, “the ex-Marine tough guy minimized small talk and, with an eye-to-eye look, said to me, ‘We’re watching you, Van Der Slik. You be careful.’ ”) His prose is normally rather staid, though with flashes of droll humor. (“We tried turning the aquarium into a terrarium,” he writes of a pet search. “How about live turtles? They could live a long time. Not ours. Ours died.”) There are moments of real pathos, as when the author describes bouts of depression or the rancor that erupted between him and his troubled son, and heartfelt expressions of gratitude to God for a “benign and blessed” life. Unfortunately, the meandering, repetitive, anecdotal narrative bogs down in minutiae—“The first administrative issue I needed to address was the vacancy in the registrar position”—or in altogether too much information. (“Tag displaced his colon, literally blowing it out of his behind. The vet did surgery, but the stitches did not hold.”) Professors will glean wisdom from some of Van Der Slik’s experiences, but casual readers may find the book slow going.
A rambling account of life in the ivory tower, sometimes engrossing but often unfocused.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-09-832350-9
Page Count: 508
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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