We had all the time in the world

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

One of the enviable perks of the academic life is the funded year off that comes every seven years, and my husband and I were miraculously scheduled for sabbatical at the same time. The year fell during what was technically the second year of our “empty nest,” but it was the first time we’d be without children and day jobs. Unlike our colleagues, who head to dusty provincial church archives to research the something-something in medieval Spain, we were free to go wherever. Filled with ideas for almost every medium — play, essay, screenplay, pilot, humor pieces — I dreamed of untold productivity and an endless summer at my in-laws’ lake house in New Hampshire. I would finally have the time and quiet I’d been hungering for after 19 years of teaching and raising children.

Staying on in a summer community is like being in a department store after closing, or the zoo after dark. I wanted the place to empty out. I wanted to turn at the flashing light without waiting for the endless line of cars piling in from Boston. And yet the weekend after Labor Day, when I showed up at the flea market ready to bag the bargains that await the locals, I discovered there was no flea market after Labor Day. In high summer I bitterly complained about the busy, noisy beach where it was impossible to read undisturbed. But when I took a late September swim, it was eerie to find myself alone there. I felt like a ghost, condemned to wander the places where I was happiest.

When Jonathan Franzen came to town

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:30:00 +0000

For the dinner in honor of the Great American Novelist the guest list is made up months in advance. Nobody asks whether the visiting writer wants a dinner. Nobody considers the possibility that giving a lecture on a full stomach and after a glass or two of wine might be difficult. The dinner is not about what the writer wants; it's about what we want. And we want to meet the writer. Are we highbrow sycophants competing for the chance to say forever after that we had dinner with the Great American Novelist? Or are we faithful readers grateful to hear more from a writer we admire? When Jonathan Franzen came to Kenyon College, I was hoping we'd be the latter.

The denizens of a small liberal arts college have a twitchy, uneasy relationship to fame. Those who once hoped to be literary stars themselves will often take a defiantly unimpressed stance. Having somehow been tapped to be Jonathan Franzen's host, I bent over backward to invite a certain English professor to the dinner, seating him next to the guest of honor, only to learn later that he was "not a fan." Bringing in a writer you admire is very much like bringing a new boyfriend home to meet the family. While you hope that they like him, and vice versa, you are resigned to being embarrassed.

Salon.com > Wendy MacLeod

We had all the time in the world

When Jonathan Franzen came to town