Into That Good Night (THORNDIKE PRESS LARGE PRINT NONFICTION SERIES) - Hardcover

Rozelle, Ron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0783889631 ISBN 13: 9780783889634

Publisher: G K Hall & Co, 2000

Synopsis

Strong-willed and charismatic, Lester Rozelle was school superintendent in the small East Texas town of Oak Wood from the 1930s to the 1960s. With a firm hand, he guided his schools through disastrous fires and the strained process of integration in President Lyndon B. Johnson's home state. But several years ago Lester began to show signs of Alzheimer's disease, and a son had to watch the a painful transformation of his proud father into a dependent and ultimately foreign person,

About this title

From the Author

My reason for writing INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
The last two years of my father's life were hard, indeed. On him, on his daughters, and on me, his only son. He had Alzheimers', and he didn't know me. Those long, lonely drives home from the nursing home were cold, sad affairs. When he died, in 1992, it was as if a piece of the sun had broken off and drifted away, or some deep and important geological plate had shifted. I knew that I had to work through my feelings in some other way than thinking of good times, and praying, and sorting through boxes of old photographs. I knew I had to write it all down. The result was this book. And I've been amazed at how many people, all unknown to me, have called and written to tell me that I hadn't written my father's and my story at all, but theirs. It's a common story, about common people, and I'm so glad that it's found a receptive audience. I've learned this: the hardest journey that many of us will take is one where we don't actually go anywhere at all. It's when we have to watch someone that we love slip away from us. I hope that INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT will be helpful.

About the Author

RON ROZELLE is the author of "Into That Good Night" (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), which was a finalist for the PEN American West Creative Nonfiction Prize and the Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins Award. His first novel, "Windows of Heaven," set in Galveston during the hurricane of 1900, was released by Texas Review Press in July of 2000. Chosen as Barnes and Nobles' Houston-area Featured Author for November, he lives in Lake Jackson, TX, with his wife Karen and their daughters and teaches creative writing and English.

Edition details

• Publisher: G K Hall & Co
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0783889631
• ISBN 13: 9780783889634
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 231