Morgantown: Difficulty at the Beginning Bk. 2: Difficulty at the Beginning Book 2 - Softcover

Maillard, Keith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1897142072 ISBN 13: 9781897142073

Publisher: Brindle and Glass Publishing, Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Pick of 2006

John Dupre, a junior at West Virginia University, is an English major on the Dean's List dressed up as a Beatnik cowboy, the folk-singing resident outsider before nonconformity became a youth uniform.

Morgantown is a masterful ensemble piece centering around John and peopled by his unforgettable friends in the out crowd: Bill Cohen, the sharpshooting, knife-throwing Zen Buddhist Harvard scholar; Marge Levine, the political radical with the Nefertiti eyes; and William Revington, the scion of old money who has the world on a platter and can't think of a single thing to do with it. And then theres his girl-friends and sexual obsessions: Carol Rabinowitz, the Wyatt scholar and Jewish American Princess; Natalie, the folk-singing boy-girl with the mind of a scientist; Cassandra Markapolous, whom John loves but is not allowed to be in love with.

And, there's the Alice in the photograph, the boy dressed up as a girl dressed up as another girl, on and on endlessly reflecting: a hall of mirrors that threatens to draw John into its vortex.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Maillard is the author of thirteen novels, including Two Strand River, Alex Driving South, Motet, Hazard Zones, Gloria, The Clarinet Polka, and Difficulty at the Beginning, his four-volume Bildungsroman. He has won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (Motet) and was shortlisted for both the Commonwealth Literary Prize (Hazard Zones) and the Governor General's Literary Awards (Gloria). The Clarinet Polka was awarded the Creative Arts Prize by the Polish American Historical Association. His poetry collection, Dementia Americana, won the Gerald Lampert Award in 1995 for the Best First Book of Poetry Published in Canada.

Keith was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, the inspiration for the fictional town of Raysburg, which serves as the setting for many of his novels. He has been a musician, a contributor for CBC Radio, a freelance photographer and journalist, and a designer of distance education courses. His reviews, essays, and poems have appeared in many journals, ranging from Event to Flare. He is currently chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia. He lives in West Vancouver with his wife and two daughters.

The Globe and Mail called Difficulty at the Beginning "a work of terrible beauty and grace, a masterpiece fit to contend with the best novels of the last century." Be sure to check out all four volumes--Running, Morgantown, Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes, and Looking Good--now available as e-books!

Please visit Keith online at keithmaillard.com. You can also find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter at @keithmaillard.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brindle and Glass Publishing, Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1897142072
• ISBN 13: 9781897142073
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288