BOOKSHELF
IN MEMORIAM
The Stars Align for a Generational Journey By Robyn Norwood
I
n the wee hours one night in 1989, Doug Dechow came home from his job as a bartender and found a party in his living room. “I saw this woman across the room, and surrounding her were three of my very good friends, and it was kind of like she was holding court,” said Dechow, then a student at Knox College in Illinois and now digital humanities and science librarian at Chapman University. “I thought, ‘That’s an interesting person. We should meet at some point.’” Dechow went straight to bed that night, but soon he would go for a walk across campus with Anna Leahy – then a recent Knox graduate and now a professor of English and director of Chapman’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity. Not long after that, on a date to an air show, they discovered their mutual passion for anything that flies. “I was shocked that you were willing to go,” he said, turning toward her, “because there was no one else in my life who was willing to go to this air show with me.” So began the romance that led to Generation Space: A Love Story, the new book by the nowmarried couple about their love for rockets, shuttles, jets and each other. The book is part memoir and part nonfiction look at the era of space exploration spanning President John F. Kennedy’s
34 | CHAPMAN MAGAZINE
Louie, Take a Look at This! My Time with Huell Howser
Twyla and Charles Martin
(Prospect Park Books) Luis Fuerte and David Duron
Charles D. Martin
Three years after the death of Howser, Louie – aka Luis Fuerte, a five-time Emmy-winning cameraman – shares the stories of their adventures exploring California, making great television and showcasing Howser’s infectious love for the Golden State.
Generation Space co-authors Anna Leahy and Doug Dechow share a love of rockets, shuttles, jets and each other.
1961 pledge to put a man on the moon and the last flight of the Space Shuttle in 2011. The work takes readers on explorations of Cape Canaveral and beyond, guided by a poet and a scientist. There are discoveries all along the way. At one point, Leahy, visiting the Kennedy Space Center on a media credential for the first time, trundles onto a bus with the press herd, not even sure where she was going. “And then when I got there, I realized that Challenger had
taken off from that launch pad decades earlier,” she said. “And I think that’s something that made us think that we had a book that others would want to read, because every time we talked about the Challenger accident, people of our generation remember where they were and have something to say.” To Leahy and Dechow, Generation Space is made up of Americans born between the Soviet forays into space in the 1950s and the first Space Shuttle mission in 1981. The era’s emotional end is highlighted by the authors “coming to terms with the fact that we’re not going to Mars, despite having been promised that as children,” Dechow said. “We sort of bequeath the future to Generation Mars, and in the end, those who will get there.”
Rulers, Religion, & Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (Cambridge University Press) Jared Rubin, Ph.D., associate professor at the Economic Science Institute For centuries following the spread of Islam, the Middle East was far ahead of Europe. Yet, the modern economy was born in Europe. Why was it not born in the Middle East? Rubin examines the role Islam played in this reversal of fortunes.
You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why It Matters (Harmony) Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., the Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics Chopra and Kafatos tell us that we’ve reached a turning point in which modern science challenges everything we know about reality. The authors explain how each of us is a co-creator of a reality extending to the vast reaches of time and space.
A member of Chapman University’s Board of Trustees for nearly 30 years, Chuck Martin passed away March 28. He was 80.
Aperture (Shearsman Books) Anna Leahy, Ph.D. associate professor of English This book of poetry opens a gap to the lives of women, playing with notions of how we present ourselves and how we are perceived and represented by others. The work is designed by Claudine Jaenichen and features a painting by Lia Halloran, both professors in the Department of Art.
Superman in America & Other Absurd Plays (Black Scat Books) Mark Axelrod, Ph.D., professor of English This outrageous and timely collection of eight absurdist dramas confronts our contemporary nightmares with wit and insight. In the provocative title play, Superman stands trial as an illegal alien.
Balzac’s Coffee, DaVinci’s Ristorante (Verbivoracious Press) Axelrod In this sequel to Borges’ Travel, Hemingway’s Garage, Axelrod
photographs products and businesses that bear the great names of Western civilization. Then he recounts the turns of fate by which immortals ended up in these mundane straits.
Poetics of Prose (Palgrave/Macmillan) Axelrod This creative yet scholarly work discusses prose’s important relationship to close literary analysis. Bringing together a literary history of writers such as Lermontov, Chekhov and Camus, Axelrod interweaves discussions of structure, plot and other key elements often applied to poetry.
Women and Value in Jane Austen’s Novels (Palgrave Macmillan) Lynda A. Hall, Ph.D., assistant professor of English Hall’s work explores how Austen’s minor female characters expose the economic and social realities of British women in the 18th century, reflecting the conflict between intrinsic and expressed value within the evolving marketplace.
Together with his wife Twyla, Martin was a longtime benefactor of an array of programs at the University. In 2013, the couple served as gala chairs for the signature gala fundraising event now known as Chapman Celebrates. They also were faithful supporters of Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, endowing the Twyla Reed Martin Dean’s Chair held by Bob Bassett. During his widely successful business career, Martin was chairman and CEO of Mont Pelerin Capital, an equities hedge fund, and also was the founder and manager of two notable investment firms, Enterprise Partners, which became the largest venture capital firm based in Southern California, and Westar Capital, founded with fellow trustee George Argyros. Martin’s business acumen greatly benefited Chapman, and during his tenure on the Board of Trustees’ Investment Committee, the size of the University’s endowment doubled. He also served on the boards of more than 40 public and private companies as well as the boards of several charitable organizations, among them the Orange County Museum of Art and the Graduate School of Management and Irvine Foundation at UC Irvine. In addition, Martin was the author of numerous publications and several books, including 2016’s Orange County, Inc., The Evolution of an Economic Powerhouse. Chapman President Daniele Struppa called Martin “a dear friend,” adding that “my debt to him is immense, and so is my sadness.” W I N T E R 2 017 | 35