|
Alumni/ae
1939-Arthur E. Rowse. Drive-By Journalism: The Assault on Your Need to Know. (Common Courage Press, 2000).
1946-Trevor Robinson. "The Metabolism and Biochemical Actions of Alkaloids in Animals." IN Studies in Natural Product Chemistry. (v. 22, pp. 3-54) Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000.
William F. Jordan.- Black Newspapers and America's War for Democracy, 1914-1920. (University of North Carolina Press, 2001)
|
Playing in the Rough
 Not
all professional golfers are flat bellies who frequent the fitness trailer and worry about their body fat. Many labor in the vineyards of the mini-tours scratching out a meager existence, filling up on the complimentary breakfasts and saving coupons for Whoppers and Big Macs. Similarly, not all golf novels concern mystical caddies who can cure a bad swing by uttering a Zen koan.
Spikes by Michael Griffith '83 (Arcade Publishing, 2001) is a fine novel about a golfer, Brian Schwan, who sees his days on the Snapper/Gold Club Tour-a mini-tour of hustlers, philosophers and aspiring tyros hoping for a chance to make it to the big show, the PGA Tour-coming to a close. Spikes is not, however, a novel in which golf is a metaphor for life. In fact, it's a well-crafted book tailored for all types of readers, from the hapless linkster to those looking for a lucid and insightful journey that not only informs but also delights.
Griffith knows both his craft and his golf. It should be noted that while at Phillips Exeter, he played varsity golf and distinguished himself as the only varsity player in Academy history who forgot to bring his clubs to a match. He nevertheless shot a respectable round with rented clubs-and won his match. So it is no coincidence that Griffith's hero is more at home with the cosmic than the prosaic. Brian Schwan ponders and dissects everything, from his golf swing to his interpersonal relationships. Not for him the philosopher's advice that life is not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Like his father, a golfer with aficion, Brian vaingloriously believes he has solved the mystery, only to see it disappear again. As the novel opens, Schwan has just shot the worst round of his life, while watching his playing partner, Bird, blister the course with a 59. Schwan's life is crumbling around him: his wife, Rosa, wants him to return home and start a family; his mother calls to say she is worried about his "erratic" behavior; and his father is coming to Charleston to watch his next round. To ensure the train wreck, Schwan grants an interview to a TV reporter who has mistaken him for Bird, his record-setting partner; Schwan extends the masquerade by making a date with the reporter for that evening. Griffith knows his Kafka and his Mann; moreover, he knows his mythology, which gives his first novel a keen literary edge. This is not to say that Spikes is a repository for clever allusions; rather, it is a vivid description of life on the mini-tour written by a talented author. What reader does not delight in discovering that a putter can nestle in the bottom of a golf bag "like a snapped wishbone"? Or learning that after an argument, Rosa falls asleep in "an angry half hitch"? Granted, there are moments when Bird "flutters" too often, and you are tempted to say, in a basso profundo, "Let that metaphor go!" But these moments are rare. What distinguishes Spikes is its exquisite prose and such trenchant observations as "Nothing dissolves awe like bad theater." We are happy to be in the company of someone who can employ words for diction and for rhythm. Brian Schwan only achieves the grace his name connotes when he begins to live the mystery. In a similar fashion, Michael Griffith has afforded us a reading opportunity that reminds us that mystery and grace abound, even on the Snapper/Gold Club Tours of life. — George H. Mangan George H. Mangan, instructor in English and coach of the varsity golf team, has been a member of the Exeter faculty since 1976. |
|
|
