authors Jane Stanton Hitchcock ‘64 Celebrating her 45th Wheeler Reunion this year, writer Jane Stanton Hitchcock has published another of her witty, engaging mysteries. Her latest novel, Mortal Friends, shares none of the goriness of earlier works such as The Witches’ Hammer and Trick of the Eye. Instead, the violence has moved deeper inside the world of ‘society’ that Hitchcock reveals in ways that prove her familiarity. Washington, D.C. gets the scrutiny and critique this time, much as New York City showed it’s hidden, uglier side in her last book Social Crimes. What’s particularly fun about this new novel, is Hitchcock’s not-soveiled references to the main character’s prep school in Providence. Known here as “Wheelock,” the mystery connects old school chums and, without giving away the story, even references alumni publications such as the one you’re reading now! Mortal Friends is published by HarperCollins.
Debra Lawless ‘77 A self-described ‘proud member of the Wheeler Class of 1977,” Debra Lawless has written a history of Chatham, Massachusetts in the Jazz Age of the 1920s. Often regional histories such as this can be dry recitations of facts dug out of residents’ attics and town archives, but Lawless has portrayed the town as a living piece of an era by focusing on key characters who were residents of Chatham at the time. Using her skills as a journalist and historian, Lawless’ stories of the five men and women are so interesting that one wishes she would develop biographies (or fiction, even) based on any one of their lives — artists Harold Dunbar and Alice Stallkneckt Wight get this reader’s vote. Chatham In The Jazz Age is published by The History Press, Inc. A trip over to the Cape will let you find the book at either The Yellow Umbrella or Where The Sidewalk Ends, both places having hosted signings by the author this summer.
Alumni authors — send us your work and we’ll mention it in a future publication as well as place it in the Alumni Authors Collection in the Prescott Library on campus. 34
Now & Then @ Wheeler