Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University

Alumni scene
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NEW RELEASES BY ALUMNI READING ROOM: CHARLOTTE ROGAN ’75
The Passage of Power
(Knopf), the fourth
volume of ROBERT A.
CARO ’57’s biography
The Years of Lyndon
Johnson, follows
Johnson from 1958,
when he began campaigning unsuccessfully
for the 1960 Democratic nomination,
to 1964. It examines his vice
presidency and his early time as president.
... EDWARD BERENSON ’71 traces the
history of the Statue of Liberty, describing
individuals involved in the project
and examining how
Ameri cans have interpreted
the statue’s
meaning, in The Statue
of Liberty: A Trans -
atlantic Story (Yale
University Press).
Beren son is a history professor and
director of the Institute of French
Studies at New York University. ... New
York City’s distinction first as a major
Colonial seaport and later as the
United States’ largest metropolis long
has made the city a target for enemies,
writes STEVEN H. JAFFE
’81 in New York at War:
Four Centuries of
Combat, Fear, and
Intrigue in Gotham
(Basic Books). He
chronicles the military
history of the city. Jaffe is a writer and
historian. ... In Princeton: America’s
Campus (Penn State University Press),
W. BARKSDALE MAYNARD ’88 uses text and
rare archival photographs to provide a
history of Princeton’s campus interwoven
with a social history of the Univer -
sity. “The complex
tale,” he writes,
“involves not only
architects, but educators,
administrators,
trustees, and alumni
— sometimes cooperating
but often squabbling, because
the stakes are high: No one wants to
spoil The Great American Campus.”
Maynard is the author of five books.
READ MORE: Q&A with Barksdale
Maynard ’88 @ paw.princeton.edu
May 16, 2012 Princeton Alumni Weekly
The idea for
The Lifeboat — Charlotte Rogan ’75’s
debut novel set in 1914 about a group of people
who spend three weeks at sea after an explosion on
an ocean liner — emerged in 1999. Grace Winter,
who would become the novel’s main character and
narrator, was part of another story Rogan had written.
On and off over the next 10 years, Rogan
worked on Grace’s tale.
Since Rogan started writing fiction 25 years ago,
she has produced four other novels. Occasionally
she tried to get them published, but she wasn’t
much interested in or very good at the selling
process.
Enter Sara Mosle ’86. She had heard that Rogan had triplets and contacted her
in 2008 to see if she could interview Rogan’s children for a story she was writing
for The New York Times. Rogan and Mosle became friends, and Mosle introduced
Rogan to her literary agent. The Lifeboat was published by Reagan Arthur
Books/Little, Brown and Company in April.
WHAT SHE JUST READ:
Tom McCarthy’s Remainder
Ayoungwoman
surviving at sea
What she liked about it:
“I don’t like novels that open
with endless exposition and
explanation. McCarthy just
throws the readers into his
story midstream and trusts
that they can swim.”
The novel opens after the boat’s rescue as
Grace, a 22-year-old American, and two other
surviving passengers are about to go on trial,
accused of committing a crime on the
lifeboat. Then the scene shifts to the lifeboat,
and Grace retells the story of those days and
nights waiting for rescue.
Newly married, Grace has secured a place
on the overcrowded boat, but her husband
has not. The only seaman on board, John
Hardie, takes charge and makes tough deci-
sions to ensure the safety of the passengers — refusing to save a boy in the water
and beating off three men who try to board the boat. At one point, to ride out
rough seas, it is determined that two people must sacrifice themselves to lighten
the boat, and the men on board draw straws. At other times passengers mysteriously
disappear. Eventually an overthrow of Hardie brews. The last part of the
novel returns to the trial.
Rogan “circles around society’s ideas about what it means to be human, what
responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices
made in order to survive,” wrote Publishers Weekly, which called the novel “a complex
and engrossing psychological drama.”
An architecture major at Princeton, Rogan worked in the engineering branch of
Turner Construction Co. and took graduate courses in architecture, civil engineering,
and business. “I never found what I should be. I was never at all sure,” she says,
that is, until she began taking creative-writing classes in her 30s.
The Lifeboat was chosen as a “must-read” debut novel by The Sunday Times of
London and made the British bookseller Waterstones’ list of the best debut novels
of 2012. At a Waterstones party for the 11 new novelists on the list, Rogan, 58,
thought the other writers would be “adorable young things.” As it turns out,
another was also in her 50s and someone else 49. Says Rogan: “The message to
other unpublished writers is to stick with it. It can happen.” π By K.F.G.
HBGUSA