A Bad Day For People Who Love To Read: Robert B. Parker and Erich Segal

January 21, 2010, 2:10 am

Since reading mystery books got me through graduate school with my mind intact (OK, mystery books and Tina Turner’s Private Dancer album), imagine my shock this morning when I opened the Paper of Record and learned that Robert B. Parker died at his desk yesterday. Parker, who wrote five pages a day, every day, was the creator and alter-ego of my beloved Spenser, Boston’s literary private dick and modern Knight of the Round Table. I will never forget reading my first Spenser, at the urging of my first real, grown-up, live-in girlfriend, while I was studying for my comprehensives. I then read the next fifteen, and haven’t missed buying them in hardback since. Next time you are in a rough spot with an administrator, try this kind of retort on for size (quoted in the obituary):

“Look, Dr. Forbes,” Spenser says to the long-winded college president who is hiring him. “I went to college once. I don’t wear my hat indoors. And if a clue comes along and bites me on the ankle, I grab it. I am not, however, an Oxford don. I am a private detective. Is there something you’d like me to detect, or are you just polishing up your elocution for next year’s commencement?”

Don’t forget your deadpan expression. Because of Spenser I took to drinking Rolling Rocks “in the long neck returnable bottles,” began to take extra pride in my cooking skills, and imagined that a small gun that fit just under the armpit wouldn’t be such a terrible idea on the first day of class. One I went to a book signing in New York and found, to my shock, that at 5’8″, I was about half a foot taller than the otherwise Spenser-ian Robert Parker, which shook me up a little bit, but it didn’t disrupt my belief that as long as Spenser stalked the earth all would be well.

If this were not enough loss for one day, the POR also reported the death of Love Story author Erich Segal, the classics professor who wrote that one, blockbuster, touch-a-nerve book that allowed him to live the rest of his life in peace and prosperity. Yeah, this was the guy who coined the phrase “Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry,” most famously ripped off as “Tenure means not ever having to say you’re sorry.” This book came out when I was in the seventh grade and became an instant hit in the world and in the seventh grade, in part because a small crowd of our classmates began to date that year and Love Story (as well as a a certain passage from the wedding scene at the beginning of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather) allowed most of us to read about what a few of us were doing. My mother prohibited me from reading Love Story on principle because she thought it was such romantic junk, which forced me to borrow a copy from someone else and read it under my desk during math class. Naturally, of course, I identified with Oliver, and for the rest of the semester, as other people learned algebra, I drifted away, imagining myself walking the streets of Cambridge, blind with tears, as my beautiful wife, who spoke all my feelings so I did not have to, died prettily of leukemia in a hospital bed.

The good thing about books? You can always read them again. But while I doubt that I could make it through Love Story or any of its sequels at this age, Spenser stayed with me for decades and (after the two books that are still in the pipeline) now he’ll be gone. Oh sure, the novels had become predictable. But that is, in part, why I loved them. So many things in life changed, but Spenser stayed the same.

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DoctorCleveland

Amen. There are a lot of Philip Marlowe knockoffs in the world, but Spenser was the one who, when hired to bodyguard to a feminist academic on book tour, could tell her that he'd read her book and thought it was too much a rehash of Simone de Beauvoir. I'll miss him and his maker both.
GayProf

I must confess to never having read the source material, but Robert Urich was definitely one of my earliest secret t.v. crushes.
chguk

I think this situation arises because access (and hence outcome) in the US education system is determined by class (mostly ability to pay) rather than ability.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with there being different types of education – different people need different challenges in order to thrive. I would also challenge interpretation of the (questionable) fact that the “best” undergraduate programs are “known worldwide for their focus on a strong liberal arts foundation” to mean that a liberal arts foundation is the best type of education – this is a fallacious argument deriving “B implies A” from “A implies B”.

Simply put: if you actually make access to education need-blind, you solve a lot of these problems. But then that would mean some more middle-class kids not getting into the Ivies.
marylchurchill

chguk – Thanks for your comments. I started working in higher ed as a financial aid counselor in the late 80s/early 90s and we were need-blind when it came to admissions but not when it came to aid packages and the results were devastating.

Regarding a liberal arts foundation, I firmly believe that a strong liberal arts foundation provides the best education and that if we are not providing access to that type of education, we are recreating existing inequities.
mbelvadi

You make it sound as if the 8th grade algebra class enrollment was decided strictly by parents’ income or job titles, as if the students’ 7th-grade grades were unrelated. My own middle school started intensive tracking at grade 5, at which point it was already obvious, in math at least, which kids had the foundational skills established and which ones didn’t. The real class issue is the one that ties back into what’s happening in the home, which you don’t mention. My college-educated parents were teaching me the alphabet at age 3 and one of my earliest toys that I remember was Cuisinaire Rods which were teaching me math. I doubt that was happening at the homes of the kids who ended up in the non-college tracks. This is why programs like Head Start are absolutely critical to educational equity.
What really scares me is that it appears that all of the public schools except the very best have completely abandoned teaching the foundational skills at all – basic grammar, spelling, and arithmetic. I don’t understand how this happened, but we who work in higher ed see the consequences every day.
A man with a hammer thinks everything can be fixed with a nail. Just because we work in higher ed, we tend to want to solve society’s problems where we are. But we’re much too far down the pipeline – the problems you’re addressing need to be solved much further upstream, like kindergarten. The best higher ed can do is to conduct the research that provides the early childhood and elementary practitioners with the best practices advice that we can give.
marylchurchill

mbelvadi – Thanks for your comments and yes, we have to start with pre-K. I was in a Head Start program in 1971, the summer before I started Kindergarten. I had just moved to the community and that program really gave me the confidence to enter a classroom filled with so many new faces. Although I had started reading at the age of 3, the real preparation I lacked was in regards to my ability to socialize with kids my own age.

Regarding the 8th grade Algebra class – invitations were definitely based on grades in 7th grade math classes BUT, parents played a key role in lobbying to get their kids into that class and the number of seats in the class were limited. Middle-class parents were much more aware of the influence they could have on getting their children into the class.

When it comes to higher ed, I agree that we have a role to play in the area of research. I also think we can do a much better job bridging the senior year of high school/freshman year of college gap and that there are roles for both high schools and colleges in bridging this gap. Too often, it seems like we just complain about how under-prepared students are rather than work on fixing the problem. I am hopeful that the common core will, at the very least, give us a way to assess the size of the readiness gap.
jonbower

Ms. Churchill is right that every child deserves the opportunity to prepare for, attend, and complete college – the prerequisite to high income in our society. However, we must also realize that never in the history of Western civilization has over 50% of the population of any country completed higher education. We also need high quality work and life preparation programs for the 60% of our children who will be the farmers, plumbers, technicians, salespeople, hairdressers, etc. who do most of the work in our society. Let’s treat every child as valuable by giving them the opportunity to succeed at the level that they can attain – irrespective of race or class – by delivering high quality education at every level, not just elite colleges.

marylchurchill

Jon – thanks. My focus is definitely on equality in opportunity. College is not for everyone and it is also not for everyone at the age of 18. Two of my younger siblings didn’t start coursework towards their bachelor’s degrees until they were in their 30s – after marriage, kids, divorce, life. We need a high school education that prepares all kids for college and then, they have choices, rather than closed doors. And I completely agree that all college students deserve an education that we can be proud of, an education that we would want for our own children.

pam_annas

What I’m missing in this conversation so far is the value of the practical arts and skills for everyone. One of the policies I appreciated in the high school in an upper middle class suburb my son just graduated from is the requirement that all students take at least one hands on course–in carpentry, culinary arts, theatre stagecraft, graphic design, childcare–in order to graduate.

mvclibrary

Excellent point. Reminds me of Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft. and his thesis that what is considered ‘knowledge-based work’ is often less intellectually intensive than skilled the trades. One without the other is intellectual affectation at best.

marylchurchill

Pam and mvc – I think that practical arts are important but I would not place them at the foundation of an education. When I think back on my high school years, my best learning moments happened in my science classes – those with labs – biology, anatomy, chemistry, and physics. I happen to love science but the joy of being able to learn a theory and then test it was uncontainable at that age. As I mentioned in my post, I have a 6-year old son and his best learning moments occur when he is working hands-on with materials. He loves art and science and both occur together in the “real” world.

rick1952

I tend to agree with Ms. Churchill’s argument about the class-based nature of the educational guidance given to children in schools. But, mbelvadi makes a cogent point about parental influence.

Personal anecdote: I recall that when was in the 8th grade, I wanted to enroll in an auto mechanics class as part of my high school curriculum. However, my mother was having none of it and made it clear that I would not be permitted to enroll in any high school class that was not “academic.” Needless to say, I went on to complete most of the college prep curriculum (most because I never did enroll in chemistry, as it was optional and I was told by my 10th grade homeroom advisor I would never need it) and ultimately completed a bachelors, masters and doctoral degree.

I should note that neither of my parents nor any of my grandparents (or any other relatives I knew) attended college. Over the years, I realized that my mother’s insistence on “academic” preparation was deeply rooted in her lower working class experience of completing what was then called the “vo-tech” curriculum in high school and how that had severely limited her options. It probably did not help that my father had dropped out of high school (he eventually earned a GED.) They understood the value of a college education, or at least a college degree, and recognized that it was accessible only to those who completed an “academic” high school curriculum.

My parents high school careers took place during the 1940′s; I was in 8th grade in 1966.

The strong liberal arts education which I received at a highly selective college opened up a vast world of opportunity I could not have imagined and planted me firmly in the middle class. It also gave me what Ms. Churchill describes as the capacity, “…to consider what it means to play a role in society and to participate in the social world. Education should challenge students to think differently and to think critically about the assumptions they hold.” I am an active citizen, serving on several community boards and volunteering my time to a number of community agencies. So, I agree that a strong liberal arts education is valuable in more than just an instrumental way.

Each of my children graduated from college. And I marvel at how my pre-school grandchildren are being raised by my children with a clear agenda that points to college. I think of Geoffrey Canada’s observation that children of the middle class learn thousands of words before they are two years old each time my 2 year old and a 3 year old grandchildren make the effort to “talk” to me and how their parents talk to them (both know the alphabet, follow along in books when read to, and even know how to use computers to a limited degree!) I suspect my children will insist, as their grandmother did with respect to their father, that their children be prepared for college. The difference is they know what they are preparing their children for much better than their grandmother knew (so, no amount of bad academic advice from a homeroom advisor will permit them to escape high school chemistry.) Of course, my children and grandchildren are upper middle class. They will be “career-ready” no matter what. So, I wonder how we will insure that those who are not headed to college (for whatever reason) will also be “career -ready.” It will require the same focus and determination exhibited by my mother as well as high quality educational programs, “academic” or “vo-tech”, available to this next generation of students.

jffoster

One observation: Most people who go to and graduate from college do not have _careers_. They have jobs. If they’re fortunate, they have a job — or a career — which is also their vocation.

betterschool

I appreciated this article and its importance in uncovering our unintended biases. A minor aside: as a group, the professoriate is not a particularly creative bunch. The requirements of getting here emphasize a variety of other attributes such that the truly creative seldom make it through “the system.” That said, there is little reason to think we can be effective in fostering creativity in our students. What we can do is broaden the appreciative horizons of all students, regardless of class status.
crunchycon

It isn’t just “those who can pay” but “those who can garner sufficient financial aid”, i.e., the poor, who have access to higher education. It is the middle-middle and lower-middle classes who have less and less access. “Rich”, i.e., those can pay, and “poor” have all the access they care to take.

22086364

Not so much, crunchycon. I’ve had students who supported themselves, but whose parents chose to keep claiming them as dependants. Thus, no financial aid.
And students whose parents forbid the filing of the FAFSA, which is the ticket to obtaining financial aid. They, often politically conservative, crunchycon, think filing the FAFSA is inviting government intrusion. But no need-based aid for them.
And then, even though the FAFSA suggests that MY EFC (expected family contribution) to my daughter’s education is about 9K (since I make under 60k), her school expects 24K. I provide 20K, and the school gets more than half my monthly income ten months a year. Luckily, my needs are simple, I have no debt, and I’m willing to eat cheaply. Not everyone can do that.
So, basically, the cost of education exceeds what all but the richest can easily pay, and the middle class AND the poor suffer.
Do you work with students? I’d like you to meet mine. Some sleep in their cars; some raise their younger siblings; one has one pair of shoes; the fruit and candy we leave out in the office is sometimes the bulk of some our students’ caloric intake, and I’ve enterted the washroom at work some morning to see students giving themselves sink bathes. I work at a nice state university, located in the nice outskirts of a major metropolitan area.

22086364

When I was a (scholarship) student at Phillips Exeter, such luminaries as Ted Kennedy, John Irving, Gore Vidal, and Father Flye, James Agee’s old mentor, exhorted students to take our leadership responsibilities seriously, and to live lives of nobless oblige. When I transferred to a public high school, we were herded into the auditorium to be told by HR directors about the wisdom of learning Japanese and Spanish, since our employers would likely find those useful skills.

My husband and I, middle class in salaries, but culturally wealthy, placed our children in schools that matched their interests and abilities, travelled (on the cheap) to Europe, and were lucky enough to fill our house with interesting people.

Now my children are in fine schools, and in fine academic programs within those schools, and I work with equally intelligent, ambitious young people for whom the horizons are, or may be, much more limited. Some absolutely brilliant students are unable to afford to even consider study abroad programs, unpaid internships, or the possibility that they might qualify for a Fullbright or Rhodes scholarship. Their college educations may help them move a step or two up the conomic ladder, and they may well surpass their parents’ station in life; however, there are wonderful opportunities in life they have and will be denied, simply because they’re poor, middle-class, or unconnected.

Students who drop out of school, or whose academic aspirations and possibilities are narrowed by things outside their own control represent a moral and economic loss for the world. It’s profligate to waste human potential by cultivating some people, ignoring others, and outright squashing some.

Answers? I don’t have any. But, since I get students at the university end of things, I do my best to work with them where they are, and to make as many possibilities as possible available to them. I’m sure I fail quite often.
geoz32

There is no better cure for the anti-leadership bug, than putting that person in leadership.
iriselina

Hi,
Interesting article.When I found myself as Director after years of being a Professor, I was forced to think anew especially about relationships among us all. I bought myself a book called ‘The Accidental Leader’ ( Robbins &Henley) and that helped me slow down and think. It also helped me take stern action where I had to and not seek mere harmony. I was 69 and still learning that academics is not about what you know but on how you get along with others and help others to do so.
lifenbalance

I found a good way to respond to people proposing ideas is to shift the responsibility back on them. For instance, “Good idea, telling me more about how you would go about implementing that.” or “It sounds like you have a strong interest in developing this project, keep me informed on your progress.” The toughest part of moving from a non management role to management is holding back on the “doing” part and putting more energy into managing the “doers”.

Chalchihuite

The “you propose it, you implement it” strategy can also backfire for managers, though, because it’s a disincentive for people to tell them about problems. If I can’t talk to a manager about some issue without getting handed a new assignment and a new reporting responsibility, I’m much likelier to either deal with the problem on my own (which is not necessarily the way that management would prefer that it be resolved), or decide that the problem isn’t important enough for me to bother about (which may not be a reflection of management’s priorities). This isn’t to endorse micromanagement, or to say that managers shouldn’t encourage worker initiative, just to point out that a manager who holds back too much on “doing” can inadvertently cut herself out of the loop.

lesboprof

Geoz32, I agree with that, though there are many folks you wouldn’t want in leadership positions, often because they fail in areas irselina and lifenbalance note: getting along with people and follow through! And strangely enough, even after they have failed, they still sometimes resent the leaders. And thanks for the book suggestion, Irselina!

iriselina

Most welcome. I was totally confused when the Admin. asked me to sack someone as young as my daughter ! I delayed, trying to be motherly, but it didn’t work. I sacked her later. I felt I had grown up in the bargain !

dvakil

Thank you for this article. As a new administrator coming from the faculty, I share several of the sentiments expressed here and also need to find ways to edit myself.
genericviagra

Robert B. Parker was one of the greatest writers of all time.. a very very sad notice…