Admissions of all Kinds

Anyone who's ever shepherded a child through the college admission process or has survived it herself will appreciate Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel Admission. Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan devotes herself fiercely to the young people represented by the thick piles of paper on her desk. "Not that she remembered them as individuals—no one could ever do that—but she couldn’t excise them, either. Instead, she sometimes felt as if she were throwing them behind her, into a great sack that grew heavier and heavier every year, and then she dragged them forward with her, all those lives." I was reminded of what was best about my career teaching English to high school seniors: the privilege of witnessing passionate young lives at the peak of their potential. Though we meet very few of them, the real life force of this story emanates from the hundreds of students whose admission files occupy Portia's desk, home, and soul.

Jesuits in Space

I'm wary of revisiting books from my past. What if I return to a story I loved passionately ten years or a lifetime ago and find the magic gone? What will that mean about how I've changed?

A book blog by another Richmond woman--apparently we are legion--spurred me to ignore the risks and reread The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. "Jesuits in space" is how one review described it, and I was hooked before I even opened the book. The Jesuit teachers and students at my university were an amazing group of guys; we girls used to joke that the admission requirements for the Society of Jesus included looks of at least 8.5 out of 10 and an IQ over 200. Listening to their discussions in philosophy and theology classes blew my just-freed-from-the-nuns mind wide open, and I've never been the same since. The Sparrow had a similar effect when I first read it fifteen years ago. I'm happy to say that last week it again moved my heart and challenged my thinking.