The Brown Reader: 50 Writers Remember College Hill

by Jeffrey Eugenides, Rick Moody, Lois Lowry, Marilynne Robinson, Judy Sternlight (Editor), Susan Cheever

Overview

“To be up all night in the darkness of your youth but to be ready for the day to come…that was what going to Brown felt like.” —Jeffrey Eugenides

In celebration of Brown University’s 250th anniversary, fifty remarkable, prizewinning writers and artists who went to Brown provide unique stories—many published for the first time—about their adventures on College Hill. Funny, poignant, subversive, and nostalgic, the essays, comics, and poems in this collection paint a vivid picture of college life, from the 1950s to the present, at one of America’s most interesting universities.

Contributors:

Donald Antrim, Robert Arellano, M. Charles Bakst, Amy DuBois Barnett, Lisa Birnbach, Kate Bornstein, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Mary Caponegro, Susan Cheever, Brian Christian, Pamela Constable, Nicole Cooley, Dana Cowin, Spencer R. Crew, Edwidge Danticat, Dilip D’Souza, David Ebershoff, Jeffrey Eugenides, Richard Foreman, Amity Gaige, Robin Green, Andrew Sean Greer, Christina Haag, Joan Hilty, A.J. Jacobs, Sean Kelly, David Klinghoffer, Jincy Willett Kornhauser, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, David Levithan, Mara Liasson, Lois Lowry, Ira C. Magaziner, Madeline Miller, Christine Montross, Rick Moody, Jonathan Mooney, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Dawn Raffel, Bill Reynolds, Marilynne Robinson, Sarah Ruhl, Ariel Sabar, Joanna Scott, Jeff Shesol, David Shields, Krista Tippett, Alfred Uhry, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Meg Wolitzer

“At Brown, we felt safely ensconced in a carefree, counterculture cocoon—free to criticize the university president, join a strike by cafeteria workers, break china laughing, or kiss the sky.” —Pamela Constable

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476765204
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	05/20/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Judy Sternlight (Class of ’82) enjoyed a long career in theater and communications, which included teaching and performing improvisational theater with Some Assembly Required in New York City. Passionate about storytelling, she spent nearly a decade editing books at Random House, Ballantine, and Modern Library before founding Judy Sternlight Literary Services and co-founding 5E, the independent editors’ group. She has worked with many acclaimed authors and translators including Marie-Helene Bertino, Rita Mae Brown, Edith Grossman, Bret Anthony Johnston, Mark Kurlansky, Peter Matthiessen, Daniel Menaker, and Patricia T. O’Conner.
Susan Cheever is the bestselling author of thirteen previous books, including five novels and the memoirs Note Found in a Bottle and Home Before Dark. Her work has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Boston Globe Winship Medal. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author's Guild Council. She teaches in the Bennington College M.F.A. program. She lives in New York City with her family.

Hometown:

Princeton, NJ

Date of Birth:

March 8, 1960

Place of Birth:

Detroit, Michigan

Education:

B.A. in English, Brown University, 1983; M.A. in creative writing/English, Stanford University, 1986

Editorial Reviews

03/10/2014
This appealing collection, edited by Brown alum Sternlight, is neither an ode to the institution nor a glossy publicity stunt marking the university’s 250th anniversary. It’s a relaxed roundtable of reminiscences from accomplished graduates—writers, journalists, filmmakers, artists—that evidences the “loosey-goosey, roll-with-it” intellectual aesthetic for which Brown is known. Generally appreciative, with rare moments of self-indulgence, the essays, poems, and visual art from contributors including Donald Antrim, Edwidge Danticat, and Meg Wolitzer tell familiar narratives of the tumultuous college years: angst and insecurity; entering a “world of ideas and action”; the awakening of passions for a cause, a profession, or a person. Stories are told with sincerity, skill, and an occasional, welcome shot of sarcasm, as seen in Rick Moody’s hilarious mock syllabus and Jeffrey Eugenides’s sly jabs at the Ivies. Some selections are frankly philosophical and some political, taking stock of a culture, an era, or historical moment, such as the push for Brown’s infamous “No Curriculum” or the walkout of black students in 1968. Non-Brunonians, standing outside the charmed gates of College Hill, can still relate to the stories of doubt and revelation, share the fondness for one’s alma mater as a place both “sheltering and stimulating,” and relive that unique prickling sensation of the intellect expanding. Agent: Wendy Strothman, Strothman Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2014-03-06
A gathering of memories marks Brown's 250th anniversary. In celebration of her alma mater, educator and editor Judy Sternlight (class of '82) has collected essays by writers, poets and artists who attended Brown since the 1950s. Most are warm remembrances of the quirkiest of the Ivy League colleges, boasting a "loosey-goosey, roll-with-it curriculum": no core requirements, a liberal pass/fail policy and encouragement of independent study. Admissions criteria focused more on creativity than test scores. "I wasn't supposed to make it to a place like Brown," writes Jonathan Mooney ('00), whose dyslexia resulted in mediocre high school grades. At Brown, he writes, "I wasn't the dumb kid anymore. I learned that I never was." Many contributors bring up common teenage concerns: friends, self-image, sex, etc. Although some students found kindred spirits and even love, others felt marginalized by differences of race or class. A few professors earn special praise: John Hawkes, for one, impressed novelist Meg Wolitzer ('81) by creating an "open, unguarded, and charitable environment" in his workshops. Joanna Scott ('85 AM) recounts a memorable dinner with visiting professor Susan Sontag, whom students nicknamed "the Duchess." Political and social activism was prominent in some students' experiences: Ira Magaziner ('69) recalls the student uprisings that instigated dramatic curricular change. Among the book's other notable contributors are Susan Cheever ('65), Jeffrey Eugenides ('82), Edwidge Danticat ('93 MFA), children's author Lois Lowry ('58), Marilynne Robinson ('66), A.J. Jacobs ('90), David Shields ('78) and Rick Moody ('83). To interest readers other than Brown alumnae, Sternlight might have provided some college history (when, for example, was Pembroke, the women's college, merged with Brown? How have Brown's demographics changed over the years?), and rather than relegate contributors' bios to the end, she could have placed them as headnotes, where they would provide useful context. For its intended audience, this collection will be a welcome souvenir.

Kirkus Reviews