Books, Music & Film

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The Ox Factor: China Invades the U.S. — Can America Survive?

Cover of The Ox FactorRichard Duvall ’50
(Shires Press)

Novelist Richard Duvall creates an unthinkable scenario: the United States government learns that, for years, its entire defense establishment fed data into a Chinese supercomputer hidden deep within Beijing. When the Chinese invasion force struck and wiped out the entire U.S. Pacific fleet, a full conquest of America seemed certain — at first. But where there are computers, there are also programmers. The fate of the world may lie in one pair of hands: those belonging to the elusive and secretive Ox, the only one who knows how the Chinese were able to pull off their daring cyber attack. President Elizabeth Rutledge must decide if she can trust Ox, how best to cripple the Chinese, and whether the United States should even be saved.

 

Unmentionables

Cover of the book UnmentionablesLaurie Loewenstein ’76
(Akashic Books)

How can women compete with men in the workplace and in life if they are confined by their undergarments? That’s the question that shocks the people of Emporia on a sweltering August night in 1917 when Marian Elliot Adams, an outspoken advocate for sensible women’s undergarments, sweeps onto the stage in a brown canvas tent where the townspeople have gathered. The crowd is further appalled when Marian falls off the stage, sprains her ankle, and is forced to remain among them for a week. As the week passes, she throws into turmoil the town’s unspoken rules governing the social order. Her arrival particularly shatters the preconceived notions of Deuce Garland, a recently widowed newspaper editor whose desire to conform is rooted in a legacy of shame. Deuce falls madly in love with the tall activist from New York, and Marian pushes him to become a greater, braver, and more dynamic man than he ever imagined was possible.

 

Snow in May

Cover of the book Snow in MayKseniya Melnik ’04
(Macmillan)

Snow in May introduces a cast of characters bound by their relationship to the port town of Magadan in Russia’s Far East, a former gateway for prisoners assigned to Stalin’s forced-labor camps. Composed of a surprising mix of newly minted professionals, ex-prisoners, intellectuals, musicians, and faithful Party workers, the community is vibrant, and life in Magadan thrives even under the cover of near-perpetual snow. By blending history and fable, Melnik transports us somewhere completely new in each of her stories: an ailing young girl visits a witch doctor’s house where nothing is as it seems; a middle-aged dance teacher is entranced by a new student’s raw talent; and a former Soviet boss tells his granddaughter the story of a thorny friendship. Weaving in and out of the last half of the 20th century, Snow in May is a portrait of lives lived on the periphery where, despite their isolation — and perhaps because of it — the most seemingly insignificant moments can be beautiful, haunting, and effervescent.

 

A Scandal in Venice

Cover of the book A Scandal in VeniceJulian Padowicz ’54
BFI Books)

Retired college professor “Kip” Kippur is surprised, flattered, and somewhat apprehensive when an old friend asks him to become a father figure to her troubled 14-year-old stepson, Erik. By coincidence, Kip was already planning to buy a sailboat and now looks forward to a summer of male bonding on the water. But, as with Julian Padowicz’s other novels Writer’s Block and The Best Sunset in Venice, things are not going to happen as Kip envisions them. In addition, Kip’s loving, creative, and accident-prone wife, Amanda, always finds a way to complicate his life, particularly when she attempts to reconcile him with his memory of his late overbearing and non-nurturing mother.

 

Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Cover of the book Body KnowledgeMary Simonson
(Oxford University Press)

While female performers in the early 20th century were advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they wove together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media. On stage and screen, performers borrowed from musical scores and narratives; referred to contemporary shows, films, and events; and mimicked fellow performers. Behind the scenes, they experimented with cross-promotion and new advertising techniques to broadcast tales of their performances and lives well beyond the walls of American theaters, cabarets, and halls. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful.

Body Knowledge examines these performances and the performers behind them, highlighting the Ziegfeld Follies and The Passing Show revues, Salome dancers, Isadora Duncan’s Wagner dances, and Anna Pavlova’s opera and film projects (among others). As a whole, the book re-imagines early 20th-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent. Mary Simonson is an assistant professor of film and media studies and women’s studies at Colgate.

 

Whispering Truth to Power

Cover of the book Whispering Truth to PowerSusan Thomson
(The University of Wisconsin Press)

For 100 days in 1994, genocide engulfed Rwanda. Since then, many in the international community have praised the country’s postgenocide government for its efforts to foster national unity and reconciliation by downplaying ethnic differences and promoting “one Rwanda for all Rwandans.” Examining how ordinary rural Rwandans experience and view these policies, Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda challenges the conventional wisdom on postgenocide Rwanda.

Susan Thomson, an assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate, finds that many of Rwanda’s poorest citizens distrust the local officials charged with implementing the state program and believe that it ignores the deepest problems of the countryside: lack of land, jobs, and a voice in policies that affect lives and livelihoods. Based on interviews with Rwandan peasants and government officials, this book reveals how the nation’s disenfranchised poor have been engaging in everyday resistance, cautiously and carefully. This quiet opposition, Thomson argues, suggests that some of the nation’s most celebrated postgenocide policies have failed to garner the grassroots support needed to sustain peace.

 

The World Was Our Stage

Cover of the book The World Was Our StageDoug Wilson ’57
(CreateSpace)

Producer/director Doug Wilson recounts his 50-year journey with ABC Sports and its beloved sports anthology program ABC’s Wide World of Sports in The World Was Our Stage: Spanning the Globe with ABC Sports. With a career that spanned nearly all of the show’s groundbreaking run from 1961 through 1998, Wilson provides personal perspectives on the celebrated athletes and historical events of the last half of the 20th century. His storytelling style and anecdotes capture not only “the human drama of athletic competition” but also the unforgettable golden era of sports television. The World Was Our Stage reflects the spirit of the sporting world and the wonders of modern technology as they merged on television and set the standard for sports programming in the 21st century.

Read more about Doug Wilson’s experiences in this issue’s Tableau.


 

Also of Note

Focused Ultrasound Techniques for the Small Animal Practitioner (Wiley), edited by Gregory R. Lisciandro ’95, is a guide for incorporating abbreviated ultrasound exams into veterinary practice in order to quickly detect conditions and complications not readily apparent through other examination methods.

Footnote

Frederick BuschCollection of short stories by Frederick Busch wins praise

A book of stories by one of Colgate’s most beloved professors, the late Frederick Busch, was released in December and has received great reviews by the likes of Dan Cryer of Newsday and others. The Stories of Frederick Busch features a selection of short stories that focus on interpersonal relationships between family members. The stories were chosen by Elizabeth Strout, a former visiting professor at Colgate and 2009 participant in Living Writers, the course established by Busch. She, herself, is the author of four novels including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Olive Kitteridge and, most recently, The Burgess Boys.
— Aminat Olayinka Agaba ’14