An Unfinished Season

After a whirlwind weekend in Vermont, and the completion of two short books ("The Old Man and the Sea" and "A Raisin in the Sun") I began to read a book on the recommendation of a close friend: "An Unfinished Season" by Ward Just. On the cover, in small font, it said "Pulitzer Prize nominated". My initial assessment was less than favorable. Really? This book? Pulitzer prize nominated? The book seemed stuffy and overbearing. Stuffy and overbearing are not exactly fatal descriptors when it comes to my reading preferences, see "The Untouchables" and "The Marriage Plot" as recent examples, however this book seemed especially banal and, moreover, meandering.

But it wasn't meandering at all! And once I picked up the path and direction of the book, my pace quickened and tonight, as I sat on the 8:13PM New Haven Express train out of Harlem, I read the last twenty pages both hungrily and regretfully, knowing with each turn that I was closer to the end of an unforgettable journey. Sounds cliche right? Well put your seat belt on, because here comes another: this book had a profound effect on me. It was beautiful, even if, at times, it felt slightly confused and took unnecessary detours. It was a novel about growth, and essentially distilled the "coming of age" of a young man down to a series of connected moments spread out throughout the course of a pre-collegiate summer. This is always the way that I have suspected that people grow up. Not over the course of several years but over the course of several moments.

Here is a photo I took of some of my students on a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in November of 2013: