c l a s s n o t e s |
Q
A Confederacy of Dunces, which is set in New Orleans. Great book, plus I ended up going to Tulane! —Cat Thomson ’94
Illusions, by Bach. It wasn’t an assignment, it was recommended to me by another student, Rob Gans ’83. —Halli Brown Fossaceca ’84
All Salinger… The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey… anything Mr. Harrison had us read! Loved that English class! —Liz Zieminski ’97
Boswell’s Life of Johnson RUINED an entire month of my life. Poor Steve Randall...trying to interest a bunch of 10th grade knuckleheads in that… —Chuck Vernon ’62
The Grapes of Wrath and Things Fall Apart. Can’t decide between them. —Katherine Wesmiller ’00
Unquestionably Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. —Margaret Lacoste ’71
Brave New World by Huxley had me think about life in ways I had never explored. It was the first time in a class discussion that I realized that my opinion was meaningful. Before that I was just answering questions to show that I had done my homework.—Agda McNamara Hart ’71
Machiavelli’s The Prince in George Snook’s class popped into mind first. —Denise M. Dumouchel ’80
Invisible Man by Ellison. —Kiera Durrett ’88
Macbeth in 11th grade English. —Ryan Frere ’96
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. I read it in Dr. Henchey’s English class. —Chris Osgood ’70
I learned so much about the past by reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. —Stephanie Hall ’09
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Wolfe. —John Intorcio ’78
Nabokov’s Lolita from Ms. Levchuk’s Writers’ Workshop. —Tereza Kickova ’11
The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (she spoke to our school that year!). Oh, and Night by Elie Wiesel, who also came to speak! —Alicia Murphy ’90
What book did you read at the school that had the biggest impact on you?
The Mayor of Casterbridge, in Dick Henchey’s 10th grade English class. I liked it so much I think I read everything he wrote, including all of his poetry. I did my senior thesis on Hardy’s works!! — Duff Tyler ’63 The American Pageant by Bailey (US History text) and Heart of Darkness by Conrad. —Glenn Swanson ’64 France’s Penguin Island, which Horace Thorner recommended that I read, and V. by Thomas Pynchon, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. These awakened in me a never-ending watchfulness of authoritarian personalities. —Thomas Gilbert ’68
alumni answer
Let’s see, hmm, Virgil’s Aeneid with Mrs. Teller was definitely up there, but also Hardy’s Jude the Obscure which I read for Mr. Friend. —Cassandra Laity ’70 I still reread Salinger’s The Catcher In the Rye every year or so. Archibald McLeish’s J.B. and Wilder’s Our Town also captivated me. —Jennifer Carpenter Reid ’77 Not really a book, but The Tempest from Mr. Gilmore’s Middle School English class. —Paul Sigrist ’78
The Trial by Kafka, Victory by Conrad, and Walden by Thoreau: And I still have those books! —Luca Bencini-Tibo ’70
Melville’s Billy Budd, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Bettleheim’s The Uses of Enchantment. —John Anz ’82
The Joy Luck Club in a senior English elective with Jackie Rubin. —Christa Talbot ’98 Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. — Todd Cumberland ’86
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.—Robin Saex Garbose ’78 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift and More’s Utopia with Thomas Allen Crain. I loved reading though I spent hours in the library trying to get a page down in Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. —Ginger Kahn Stuck ’81
Answers compiled from responses on Facebook. Thank you to all who participated! Find more at www.facebook.com/ WillistonAlumni
spring 2013 Bulletin 29