Boston College graduate Ted (T.M.) Murphy, writing under the pen name Declan Rush, has published a new novel set on Cape Cod. In the suspense thriller Macabre Trophies (Dark Waters Books, 2023), J.T. O’Rourke’s life has entered another downward spiral, but then he’s offered a job as a reporter for a local bi-weekly paper at The Point on Cape Cod. J.T. welcomes the opportunity not only to escape another stifling summer manning a pub, but also to leave behind a traumatic secret that haunts his dreams. J.T enjoys the postcard scenery of The Point until a summer kid goes missing and everything changes. As the last person to see the teenager alive, J.T. is thrust into the limelight as the disappearance opens old wounds from a cold case involving the brutal murder of a local boy on Christmas Eve, 1972. An author and educator, Murphy has written several books, including The Running Waves, the Belltown Mystery series, and the Totally Weird Activity books.
Mystery on Cape Cod
Philosophical hermeneutics
The Hermeneutics of Person, Belongingness and Diverse Philosophies (an anthology) is a collection of essays written by Boston College Assistant Professor of the Practice of Philosophy Stanley Uche Anozie. Philosophical hermeneutics is central to Anozie’s research and writings. These essays are recent hermeneutical reflections on the person, social responsibility, political belongingness, political rights, rights to self-determination, justice, global development, cultural competence, the question of responsibility, and just war theory. The perspectives range from indigenous African philosophy/African hermeneutic philosophy to Western/European perspectives.
Animals in the Bible
In What Does the Bible Say About Animals? (New City Press, 2022) author Jaime Waters surveys all the different ways that animals appear in the Bible. She highlight animals as a part of creation—as something that’s blessed and cared for by God—but also animals as food and animals as sacrifices. She also explores the possibility of animal afterlife and the ethical responsibility humans have for animals. A Biblical scholar, Waters focused some of her early scholarship on agricultural and ecological issues in the Bible. Waters received her bachelor’s degree from Boston College and is now an associate professor in the BC School of Theology and Ministry.
Welcome to Shiver-by-the-Sea
Boston College grad Erin Dionne, a children’s book author, has created a silly, spooky new chapter book series about friendship, community restoration and involvement, and helping your neighbors . . . even if some of them may be monsters. The series follows the adventures of Bella, who moved from New York City to the Massachusetts beach town of Shiver-by-the-Sea, her new friend Cooper, and Cooper’s dog Casper. The series is illustrated by Jenn Harney. The first two volumes of the Shiver-by-the-Sea series are Bella and the Vampire and The Were-woof. Dionne’s long list of authored books includes Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking, The Total Tragedy of Girl Named Hamlet, Balletball, and Secrets of a Fangirl, among others.
Polemical ethics
Martin Heidegger held Plato responsible for inaugurating the slow slide of the West into nihilism and the apocalyptic crisis of modernity. In his book, Towards a Polemical Ethics: Between Heidegger and Plato (Roman & Littlefield), Boston College Professor of Philosophy Gregory Fried defends Plato against Heidegger’s critiques. From the publisher: “While taking seriously Heidegger’s analysis of human finitude and historicity, Fried argues that Heidegger neglects the transcending ideals that necessarily guide human life as situated in time and place. Thinking both with and against Heidegger, Fried shows how Plato’s skeptical idealism provides an ethics that captures both the situatedness of finite human existence and the need for transcendent ideals. The result is a novel way of understanding politics and ethical life that Fried calls a polemical ethics, which mediates between finitude and transcendence by engaging in constructive confrontation with both traditions and other persons.”
Murder runs in the family
Bestselling author James Patterson and Boston College graduate Mike Lupica, an acclaimed sports journalist and bestselling author, have teamed to write The House of Wolves (Little, Brown and Company, 2023). After her father’s murder, Jenny Wolf is left in charge of a billion-dollar empire—and a family that, according to the publisher, is more ruthless than Succession’s Roys and Yellowstone’s Duttons. Patterson and Lupica previously collaborated on the book The Horsewoman. Another co-authored book, 12 Months to Live, is forthcoming this fall.
Evolution of school desegregation policy
In The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Boston College political scientist R. Shep Melnick examines the evolution of federal school desegregation policy from 1954—when the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education—through the termination of desegregation orders in the first decades of the 21st century. Combining legal analysis with a focus on institutional relations, Melnick argues that years of ambiguous, inconsistent, and meandering Court decisions left lower court judges adrift, forced to apply contradictory Supreme Court precedents in a wide variety of highly charged political and educational contexts. As a result, he contends, desegregation policy has been a patchwork, with lower court judges playing a crucial role and with little opportunity to analyze what worked and what didn’t. The Crucible of Desegregation reveals persistent patterns and disagreements that continue to roil education policy. Melnick is the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and author of The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights, and Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged education policy, Political Science department, racism, Supreme Court
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Debut novel from Sean Smith
Boston College Chronicle editor Sean Smith has written for a living for the better part of four decades, but this summer he has published his first work of fiction, Transformation Summer. Smith’s debut novel focuses on 16-year-old Seth, who reluctantly and rather bitterly joins his mother at a personal-growth camp, Toward Transformation, the summer following his parents’ separation—a split that has mystified and angered him. Much to his unexpected but pleasant surprise, Seth finds not only camaraderie among the other kids who have accompanied their parents to the camp, but acceptance, romance, and self-discovery. However, it’s the everlasting impact of this brief but life-changing sojourn that Seth grapples with immediately upon his return home, and even as he grows into adulthood. According to the publisher, Transformation Summer is “not just a coming-of-age novel, but an exploration of how we experience memories of youth.” Said Smith: “One of the major themes that emerges is whether a memory can become an end in itself, even more important than the people, places, or events it’s associated with. And does the memory, even as it enriches us, maybe prevent us from moving forward?” Read more in BC News.
Eleanor Roosevelt & Mary McLeod Bethune
Bestselling novelist Marie Benedict, a graduate of Boston College, and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray have written a new historical novel about the singular friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. The First Ladies (Berkley/Penguin Random House, 2023) is the story of two different, yet equally formidable, passionate, and committed women, and the way in which their bond helped form the foundation for the modern civil rights movement. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Bethune and Roosevelt become fast friends confiding their secrets, hopes and dreams—and holding each other’s hands through tragedy and triumph, according to the authors. When Roosevelt receives threats because of her strong ties to Bethune, it only fuels the women’s desire to fight together for justice and equality. This is the second collaboration between Benedict and Murray. They are also the authors of The Personal Librarian, New York Times bestseller and “Good Morning America” Book Club pick about Belle de Costa, a Black woman who was J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian.
Quadzilla Finds His Footing
Green Bay Packers running back A.J. Dillon, a former BC Eagle who holds the University’s all-time rushing record, is now a children’s book author. Quadzilla Finds His Footing (Orange Hat Publishing, 2023), written by Dillon and illustrated by Summer Morrison, tells an uplifting story about trying new things, even if it isn’t easy. Quadzilla is a monster who loves spending time with his monster friends, but he gets discouraged when he struggles to do their favorite activities. To cheer him up, his friends invite him to try a new game—football. Dillon hopes to teach young readers that finding your footing is a matter of self-confidence and trying new things.
BC Bookmarks 