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.
Debut novel from Sean Smith
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.
Honors and a new publication for Lynne Viti
Boston College graduate Lynne Viti, who is the poet laureate for Westwood, Massachusetts, was honored last month with the Westbeth Artists Housing’s 2023 Miriam Chaikin Writing Award in Poetry. She also was awarded Third Prize for her poem “Westwood Lodge, the Summer Hotel” in the 2023 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards presented by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. In addition, her fourth microchapbook with Origami Poems project, Waxing Gibbous Moon, was recently released. Viti is the author of the poetry collections The Walk to Cefalù and Dancing at Lake Montebello; the chapbooks Baltimore Girls and The Glamorganshire Bible; and the short fiction collection Going Too Fast.
Best by or on Fénelon
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715) was a major intellectual figure known for his writings on spiritual life, political philosophy, and education. Boston College Professor of Political Science Ryan Patrick Hanley, a specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, picks five of the best books by or on Fénelon for the media site, Five Books for Catholics. According to Hanley, “Fénelon deserves our attention for his vision of political life. He had a remarkably humane understanding of what politics could be and how it could be reformed. That part of his vision remains important today, especially in our fraught global political moment.” Hanley is the author of The Political Philosophy of Fénelon, and a companion translation volume, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings.
Historical novel inspired by alumna’s family
Boston College graduate Elizabeth (Betsy) Millane has penned a novel based in part on her family’s experiences in occupied Holland during the World War II. Sixty Blades of Grass (Bloodhound Books, 2023) tells the story of Rika, a 17-year-old Dutch Resistance fighter. She paints in fields overlooking the busy rail yards, but hidden in her artwork is information crucial to the Dutch Underground. But Rika’s covert activities aren’t the only thing on her mind. She suspects her German-born father of collaborating with the Germans and is determined to uncover the truth. Sixty Blades of Grass has been called “a riveting, heartrending novel of danger and betrayal that explores what it takes to lay down one’s life for another in the most harrowing of circumstances.” Millane graduated from BC in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in English. It was during her junior year abroad that she visited her Dutch relatives several times and learned of their of heroism and sacrifice, which formed the basis for Sixty Blades of Grass.
Building a better workplace
Rethinking Work: Essays on Building a Better Workplace (Routledge, 2023), co-edited by Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor David Blustein and Lisa Y. Flores (University of Missouri), is a collection of essays by thought-leaders, scholars, activists, psychologists, and social scientists who imagine new workplace structures and policies that promote decent and fair work for all members of society, especially those who are most vulnerable. Rethinking Work offers critical analyses in conjunction with constructive solutions on rebuilding work, providing direction and context for ongoing debates and policy discussions about work. Contributors include Lynch School faculty members Belle Liang and Betty S. Lai and doctoral student Brenna Lincoln.
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Tagged Lynch School of Education and Human Development, work, workplace
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Realism and uncertainty in world politics
In his book An Unwritten Future: Realism and Uncertainty in World Politics (Princeton University Press, 2022), Boston College Professor of Political Science and International Studies Jonathan Kirshner offers a fresh reassessment of classical realism and reveals how this enduring approach—and not its would-be successors, such as structural realism—provides the best understanding of crucial events in the international political arena. Kirshner illustrates how a classical realist approach gives new insights into major upheavals of the 20th century as as well as into the vital questions of the present—such as the implications of China’s rise, the ways that social and economic change alter the balance of power and the nature of international conflict, and the consequences of the end of the U.S.-led postwar order for the future of world politics. An Unwritten Future received the 2023 Jervis-Schroeder Best Book Award Honorable Mention from the International History & Politics Section of American Political Science Association. Kirshner discussed his book in this Q&A from his publisher. Kirshner has also penned a book review of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by Martin Wolf for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Kirshner is the author of numerous other books, including American Power After the Financial Crisis, Hollywood’s Last Golden Age: Politics, Society, and the Seventies Film in America, and the novel Urban Flight.
Fathers and sons
Mere weeks after Luke Russert, the only child of journalists Maureen Orth of Vanity Fair and Tim Russert of NBC News, graduated from Boston College in 2008, Tim Russert died unexpectedly. In a new memoir, Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself (Harper Horizon, 2023), Luke Russert writes about his exploration to find himself and his place in the world in the face of crushing expectations and grief. After his father’s death, Russert worked at NBC News, covering politics. But, he realized he had no good answer as to why he was chasing his father’s legacy. He left the network to set out on his own path. What began as several open-ended months of travel to decompress and reassess morphed into a three-plus-year odyssey across six continents to discover the world and, ultimately, to find himself. Look for Me There is both the vivid narrative of that journey and the emotional story of a young man taking charge of his life, reexamining his relationship with his parents, and finally grieving his larger-than-life father. Learn more in these interviews with Russert: People | TODAY Show | CBS | MSNBC | NBC Meet the Press
In the face of the abuse crisis
Doing Theology and Theological Ethics in the Face of the Abuse Crisis (Pickwick Publications, 2023) is a timely volume of essays by scholars from around the world who offer insights on the crisis itself and pathways for moving forward. Edited by Boston College Canisius Professor and Vice Provost James F. Keenan, S.J.; Hans Zollner, S.J., (Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome); and Daniel Fleming (St Vincent’s Health, Australia and School of Medicine, University of Note Dame Australia), Doing Theology and Theological Ethics in the Face of the Abuse Crisi is the fruit of a “theological laboratory” initiated by the then-Centre for Child Protection and the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC). Eventually those from the laboratory engaged those meeting for two years via “virtual tables,” (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Scholars were asked to ponder the following questions: To what extent have we been blind to these issues? Why have our efforts in theology and theological ethics been so slow to wrestle with this crisis? How are theology and theological ethics implicated in the crisis? And how might the disciplines be constructive in responding? Richard Lennan of the BC School of Theology and Ministry is one of volume’s contributors. The book is part of the Global Theological Ethics book series, a joint venture of the Journal of Moral Theology and CTEWC that focuses on works that feature authors from around the world, draw on resources from the traditions of Catholic theological ethics, and attend to concrete issues facing the world today.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Catholic Church, theological ethics, Theology Department
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