“I want readers to enjoy it and even be entertained by my attempts at humor and terror. I hope they think it’s weird and quirky but also honest and heartfelt,” said Boston College graduate Sean Patrick Byrne in a Q&A about his debut novel, The Psychopomps (Apprentice House Press, 2022). His book tells the story of 29-year-old Janzen Hakkinen who is ready to end his life, but instead is abducted and held with others in a supposedly abandoned building. The building’s owner “has collected a group of men and women who spend their days combating their past, fearing the present violence of a maniac and weighing the ultimate choice of how their stay together will end.” A former teacher, Byrne earned a bachelor’s degree from BC in 2000.
The Psychopomps
Nostalgic look back at ‘Chocolate Days, Popsicle Weeks’
A comment on the Boston College Alumni Facebook page about books by BC alumni prompted BC Bookmarks to dig into the writings of the late 1958 alumnus Edward Hannibal, a novelist and advertising executive who died in 2014. The Facebook commentator called Hannibal’s 1970 novel, Chocolate Days, Popsicle Weeks, a “hidden gem.” Indeed, Chocolate Days won a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award and was a bestseller. It tells the love story of Fitzie and Janice who leave Boston to make it big in New York City. Hannibal followed that first novel, with two others Dancing Man and Liberty Square Station, completing his Dropping Out trilogy. Hannibal was also the author of the thriller A Trace of Red and co-author of Blood Feud, about Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa. More from Amazon.com.
Called
Based on true events that span six decades, Called (JRS Books, 2021) tells the story of Dr. John Schmidt and nurse Clara Schmidt, Kansas Mennonites who relocated to South America to open a leprosy clinic. Set against the backdrop of World War II, Nazi uprisings, political unrest in Argentina and Paraguay, and the scourge of leprosy left untreated, the Schmidts’ story is that of two people called to a life of service. In their determination to save floundering communities across Paraguay, and to battle the stigma and shame of leprosy, the Schmidts faced opposition from many fronts: a medical community that rejected their unorthodox and revolutionary practices, governments that threatened imprisonment, and neighboring villagers who vowed to kill them. Called was co-written by the Schmidts’ daughter, Marlena Fiol, and her husband, Ed O’Connor, who graduated from Boston College in 1965. The co-authors drew from diary entries, letters, and interviews to tell the Schmidts’ story.
To be 22
Boston College graduate Jen Calonita is a bestselling author of more than 30 books for teens and middle grade readers. Her books have sold more than a million copies and have been translated into 15 languages. One of her latest books is in the same vein as the movies Big and 13 going on 30, where the young protagonist seemingly ages overnight. In 12 to 22 (Delacorte Press, 2022) 12-year-old Harper flashes forward in time to when she is 22, thanks to a mysterious TikTok filter. A former entertainment journalist, Calonita is the author of the award-winning book Secrets of My Hollywood Life. She also has written books in the Fairy Tale Reform School series and Disney’s A Twisted Tale series. Her writing has appeared in Glamour, Marie Claire, and Entertainment Weekly, among other outlets. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College in 1996.
The Great Greece Adventure
Boston College graduate Tyrese Rice, a star point guard on the Men’s Basketball team during his years on the Heights (2005-2009), has published a children’s book, Trey and the Great Greece Adventure. After graduation, Rice went on to play professional basketball in Europe for more than 10 years. In a 2019 Boston Herald interview, Rice talked about the impact that playing in Europe had on him. “Basketball has taken me to places I never heard of, I never thought I would see in my life. I honestly never thought about Europe when I was coming up. I was a kid, playing in college. Europe was never a goal. Probably the best thing that happened to me in my life…You see different cultures, see how different people live.” Trey and the Great Greece Adventure is a story about an exciting experience and the importance of friendship. Trey is a young boy who often feels alone and friendless until Marcus Rogers magically appears. Marcus introduces Trey to travel and friendship as they take an amazing excursion around the country of Greece. With Marcus’ guidance, Trey sees some of the most famous landmarks in the country while renewing faith in himself and gaining social-emotional skills he can use forever. Rice is CEO of Trusted Legacy, an initiative committed to providing youth with the support, resources, and opportunities needed to secure success academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. According to Rice, he hopes his book expands young readers’ dreams and exposes them to new possibilities and parts of the world they never know existed.
Global cancer pandemic
Cancer is the first or second cause of death in more than 130 countries. An estimated 19.3 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed across the world each year, and this number is expected to rise to 29 million by 2040. Striking inequities can be traced within and between countries in cancer incidence and survival by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. A new book, edited by three Boston College professors, seeks to examine the cancer pandemic and its inequities. The Rising Global Cancer Pandemic: Health, Ethics, and Social Justice is the second volume in the Global Theological Ethics book series, a joint project of the Journal of Moral Theology and Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church. Edited by Walsh Professor of Bioethics Andrea Vicini, S.J., Global Public Health Program Director Professor Philip Landrigan, M.D., and Research Prof. Kurt Straif, The Rising Global Cancer Pandemic has its roots in a 2021 Boston College conference on the topic. In addition to the editors, BC faculty contributors to the volume include Vice Provost and Canisius Professor of Theology James Keenan, S.J.
Poetry by design
In a new poetry collection, Theresa Burns explores themes of intention, faith, and fate in all facets of life. Design (Terrapin Books, 2022) is Burns’ first full-length poetry collection. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, Verse Daily, America Magazine, JAMA, Bellevue Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Plume, and SWWIM. In 2018, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by New Ohio Review. Burns, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College in 1981, has been a book editor and teaches writing.
My Sister’s Keeper
In her haunting book The Perfect Other: A Memoir of My Sister (Harper, 2022), Boston College graduate Kyleigh Leddy recounts the fear, anguish, and heartbreak of losing a sister to mental illness. The book tells the story of the close bond between Leddy and her beloved older sister, Kait, and recounts how Kait’s adolescence was marked with a personality change, erratic and violent behavior, and ultimately a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Then, in 2014, 22-year-old Kait disappeared. Though her body was never found, security footage showed her walking to the peak of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge, where it is presumed that she jumped. Leddy’s book got its start as a piece she wrote during her senior year at BC that won the New York Times’ “Modern Love” college essay contest. In The Perfect Other, Leddy, who holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, hopes to reduce the stigma around mental health and help other families who—like hers—felt “voiceless and afraid.” Read more, including an excerpt from The Perfect Other, in Boston College Magazine. An interview with Leddy was published in People magazine.
New poetry from Paul Mariani
Boston College Professor Emeritus Paul Mariani has published his ninth collection of poems, titled All That Will Be New (Slant Books, 2022). Written during the pandemic lockdown, the collection is a reflection on the challenges and divisions of our current times. Mariani’s faith and love of nature and art provide avenues through which the poet finds and expresses hope. The poems in this collection take on a variety of formats and incorporate Catholic imagery; paintings from artists such as Seurat, Picasso, and van Gogh; and verses from poets such as William Carlos Williams. Mariani is a widely respected poet and biographer who has written about Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. He discusses All That Will Be New in this Q&A and this Commonweal podcast.
Educational policy reform in Ireland
As calls for further reducing the role of the Catholic Church in Irish primary schools gains traction in a rapidly evolving Irish society, The Politics of Irish Primary Education: Reform in an Era of Secularisation (Peter Lang, 2022) demonstrates how the interplay of civil society activists and organizations, the media, public opinion, and political parties and elites determines how policy reforms live or die. Co-authored by Sean McGraw, a faculty member in the BC Political Science Department, and Jonathan Tiernan, The Politics of Irish Primary Education contains a rich and novel set of data, including interviews with leaders and elites from the major actors and institutions, numbers and trends from previously unreleased data from the Church and Department of Education, evidence from the authors’ originally designed and implemented parliamentary surveys, an original analysis of media coverage of educational issues and actors involved in the main educational reform debates, and detailed case studies of divestment, admissions, and curriculum policy reforms. McGraw is a comparative political scientist specializing in Irish politics. He has published How Parties Win: Shaping the Irish Political Arena and co-edited One Party Dominance: Fianna Fáil and Irish Politics 1926-2016. His articles have been published in the European Journal of Political Research and Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies, among other outlets.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged education, Ireland, Political Science department
Leave a comment
BC Bookmarks 