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| Plains Leopard Frog Yum! |
Dear Bookclub,
Zooming "The Gifted School", with a side of anxiety thanks to Holsinger's back-stabbing, overly competitive, lying, cheating, despicable cast of characters in a setting of fine child rearing, we picked our way through the web of names and relationships and came out the other side where we could talk about 'funner' things. Trying to appreciate Holsinger's motivation and diversion from his usual scholarly medieval work, (we had read "A Burnable Book"), it was easy to imagine an axe to grind from personal experience. In his 'Acknowledgments', Holsinger stated the book was conceived 15 years earlier, drafting sections while living in Boulder, CO. Personal experiences would start there. While trying to figure out if his wife had any direct influence, I noticed a thank you to Carol Holsinger in the acknowledgements.
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Carol Holsinger |
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Anna Brickhouse https://english.as.virginia.edu/people/profile/acb2hf |
A Campbell Brickhouse is listed on the William and Mary soccer team son of Bruce Holsinger and Anna Brickhouse. Hmmmmm... interesting; Campbell has his mother's last name. Carol is his aunt, listed as a William and Mary alum. Would this make Bruce Beck? Anna Azra? Campbell Charlie/Aidan?
Draw your own conclusions....
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Campbell Brickhouse |
and Campbell's advice for other athletes:
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Malcolm Brickhouse |
But wait! There's more! Brother Malcolm Brickhouse wrote this article for the Charlottesville High School News and he himself has committed to UVa's soccer team.... so Campbell/Malcolm Charlie/Aiden?
Circling back to the acknowledgements, Holsinger does thank Anna Brickhouse for 'inestimable gifts of attention and insight' and thanks Campbell and Malcolm Brickhouse for their 'soccer pointers and play-by-play suggestions'. It was there all along but those names can be tricky.
Away from the book a bit.... Admiring this family, each with their own 'gifts', I also discovered that Bruce has started a hashtag to reveal a riotous collection of examples of male authors 'thanking' their wives for typing manuscripts in acknowledgments but failing to name them! Awesome.... please check out link below and enjoy the examples laid bare.
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| -wikipedia |
This is very good:
And I am sure Anna did not type any of Bruce's work - we've come a long way baby.
The Zoom did get funner as we moved on to catching up and laughing away the covid-cobwebs.
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| a full house and a wild card! |
Terry's suggestions for an upcoming read:
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" Isabel Wilkerson
"Hamnet" Maggie O'Farrell
"Rodham" Curtis Sittenfeld *chosen
Up next:
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hardcover... or if you prefer, for just a bit over a dollar more, a racier cover on the paperback: |
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happy reading,
LK
PS "The Gifted School" is in development as a TV series with NBC/Universal Television ..starring Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman?
PPS No DNA tests were done for this piece.
PPPS Which sounds like a more gifted athlete: Brickhouse or Holsinger?
