Sunday, November 9, 2008
The Classmates
Colby-Sawyer College Hosts Geoffrey Douglas for Reading from 'The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era'
NEW LONDON, N.H., 10-28-2008 — Colby-Sawyer College will host author Geoffrey Douglas, who will read from his new memoir, The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era, about his and his classmates' experiences during and after St. Paul's School, a prestigious private school in Concord, N.H.
The reading, part of the Humanities Department's Word by Word Series, will be held on Monday, Nov. 10, at 4 p.m. at the Archives of the Susan Colgate Cleveland Library/Learning Center. The event is free and open to the public.
A member of the St. Paul's School class of 1962, Douglas reconnected with fellow alumni through an e-mail group when their classmate, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, ran for the U.S. presidency in 2004. His renewed contact with classmates led Douglas to explore what had happened to other alumni following their graduation and coming of age in the tumultuous 1960s, which became the inspiration for the book.
Tim Clark, in a book review for Yankee Magazine, describes the memoir as three books: a memoir of his Douglas's years at St. Paul's, from which he was expelled in 1961; a travelogue of the turbulent decades that followed; and a portrait of his former classmates, including Senator Kerry. Douglas is a long-time contributing write at Yankee Magazine and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.
Douglas's stories about his classmates--he follows the lives of six of them, including Kerry--all include what Clark describes as “the burden of expectations”: “Some of his classmates buckled under the load. Some, like Kerry, rose to the pinnacle of success -- yet even then, Kerry remained the outsider he had been at St. Paul's.” Clark concludes that Classmates “is a touching, troubling book that should be read by every commencement speaker before dropping the leaden mantle of expectations on another graduating class.”
NEW LONDON, N.H., 10-28-2008 — Colby-Sawyer College will host author Geoffrey Douglas, who will read from his new memoir, The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era, about his and his classmates' experiences during and after St. Paul's School, a prestigious private school in Concord, N.H.
The reading, part of the Humanities Department's Word by Word Series, will be held on Monday, Nov. 10, at 4 p.m. at the Archives of the Susan Colgate Cleveland Library/Learning Center. The event is free and open to the public.
A member of the St. Paul's School class of 1962, Douglas reconnected with fellow alumni through an e-mail group when their classmate, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, ran for the U.S. presidency in 2004. His renewed contact with classmates led Douglas to explore what had happened to other alumni following their graduation and coming of age in the tumultuous 1960s, which became the inspiration for the book.
Tim Clark, in a book review for Yankee Magazine, describes the memoir as three books: a memoir of his Douglas's years at St. Paul's, from which he was expelled in 1961; a travelogue of the turbulent decades that followed; and a portrait of his former classmates, including Senator Kerry. Douglas is a long-time contributing write at Yankee Magazine and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.
Douglas's stories about his classmates--he follows the lives of six of them, including Kerry--all include what Clark describes as “the burden of expectations”: “Some of his classmates buckled under the load. Some, like Kerry, rose to the pinnacle of success -- yet even then, Kerry remained the outsider he had been at St. Paul's.” Clark concludes that Classmates “is a touching, troubling book that should be read by every commencement speaker before dropping the leaden mantle of expectations on another graduating class.”
ANOTHER WRITER/AUTOBIOGRAPHER!
Geoffrey Douglas, author of The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era, will read from his memoir Monday afternoon from 4 - 5:00 in the Archives in the Library and will attend our class on Tuesday. There is an excerpt of his memoir outside my office for you to persue, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
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