First book of essays devoted to Coetzee's controversial novel, combining critical and pedagogical approaches. Ever since it was first published in 1999, Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace has provoked controversy. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, it follows Prof. David Lurie as he encounters disgrace through his sexual exploitation of a student and then through the shocking gang-rape of his only daughter. The novel's uncompromising portrayal of the "new" South Africa outraged many, who found the book regressive, even racist. It also challengedreaders worldwide to confront its hard questions. This first book of essays devoted to the novel ambitiously brings together criticism and pedagogy. The ten critical essays and eight essays on teaching Disgrace grapple with the ethical issues the novel so provocatively raises: rape, gender, race, animal rights. Disgrace is widely taught in colleges and universities and read in book clubs; the debates it has given rise to will take on fresh life with the release of the upcoming film starring John Malkovich. Unusually, the eighteen contributors to the collection are all faculty members or graduates of the same institution, the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies atthe University of Redlands, and have worked together closely in crafting their essays over the past two years. The volume will be exceptionally useful to teachers of literature, philosophy, and South African culture, to book clubleaders, and to all readers of Coetzee. Contributors: Nancy Best, James Boobar, Bradley Butterfield, Jane Creighton, Matthew Gray, Pat Harrigan, Gary Hawkins, Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Daniel Kiefer, Bill McDonald, Michael G. McDunnah, Kim Middleton, Kevin O'Neill, Raymond Obstfeld, Kathy Ogren, Kenneth Reinhard, Sandra D. Shattuck, Patricia Casey Sutcliffe, Julie Townsend. Bill McDonald is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Redlands, Redlands, California.

Graduates from the Morrison College Class of 1967 don't seem to have read the rulebook - the one that replaces romance with less youthful infatuations. Sure, they love to garden, adore their kids and grandkids, read, knit, and deplore texting, and yes, the television volume occasionally approaches rock concert level, but nothing - I repeat nothing - has replaced romance or passion. As love's illusions are sampled and digested, Liv's decades old secret, Rich's relationship with his ex-wife, and Scotty's adventures with fame, fortune, and the wicked witch of the west, are ingredients for a perfect tale of lust and love. Reunion organizer Guen remains caught between two generations as she struggles to have a life of her own, and Mary Alice manages full-time child care and stolen moments with her man with a droll sense of humor. In LOVE'S ILLUSIONS, volume two of the series Life, Love, and Bifocals, the bifocal set once again declares that the mirror is not the judge of who they are. Now if they can just figure out what is...

College reunions present a pageantry of who has found fortune, fallen far, remained buff, aged poorly, married well, or divorced often. For Olivia Walker MacLearn (Liv) the stakes are higher because forty-six years before the internet spit out her contact information onto reunion organizer Guen's laptop, Liv had cut all ties with her friends from Kentucky's prestigious Morrison College. Not so much as an exchange of Christmas cards has tied her to her past. But when an invitation to a 46th reunion arrives, Liv is strangely drawn to the place she fled, even though she knows that an explanation of why she went off-radar could reveal a secret long kept. Then an email arrives from Rich, the man who broke her heart those decades ago at Morrison, and with it tempting thoughts of a relationship mulligan. Liv guardedly communicates with her college buddies, always under the microscope of her fiercely-loyal best friend Mary Alice. The five share life stories as they email back and forth. Like so many middle-agers, unceremoniously yanked into the non-exclusive guild of senior citizens, Liv and her friends struggle with the dichotomy of mind and mirror. They acknowledge, mostly with humor, that their bodies may be beyond the bloom of youth, but their minds still brim with passion. As the reunion approaches, increasingly intimate conversations between Liv and Scotty, her best college buddy, a lanky boy turned intriguing man, bring both clarity to Liv's past and a new set of questions about her future. Might a new relationship develop or will the spark of an old love, extinguished for decades, reignite? And if that spark should spring forth once more, can the fire burn brightly regardless of the years gone by?

""With a voice that's part Annie Dillard and part Mike Royko, Bill McDonald helps us see the familiar world with the wonder, humor, and clarity it deserves.""