Alumni News Archives: Books - Spring 2003
Frank Cammuso '98 has recently published two books: 2007-Eleven (Villard, 2000), a collection of his humor pieces done with writing partner Hart Seely, and Max Hamm, Fairy Tale Detective, "a cross-genre graphic novel." Max Hamm, which parodies the classic Little Golden Books, is part "children's book, part comic book, and all hard-boiled mystery," he says.
Cammuso decided to self-publish the book because he wanted complete control of the project. "Because of technological advances in printing and desktop publishing, producing a book is relatively affordable," he says. "And since this is basically a comic book, distribution was simple because one company (Diamond Comics) handles 90 percent of the market." A second book based on the Max Hamm character is due out in the summer.
In June, Public Affairs Books (led by Peter Osnos '74) will publish John W. Fountain's memoir, True Vine: A Young Black Man's Journey of Faith, Hope, and Clarity. Fountain '01 is a national correspondent for The New York Times based in Chicago.
True Vine is Fountain's story of how he grew up in one of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods, becoming a father at 17 and a welfare case not long after, and the religious awakening that saved him. According to the Public Affairs website, Fountain wrote the book in every spare moment he had during the last two years on assignment for the Times, including many days and nights at his local Starbucks.
It took Stephen Franklin '85 four years to write his book, Three Strikes: Labor's Heartland Losses and What They Mean For Working Americans, published in 2001 by Guilford Press. Franklin is labor and workplace reporter for The Chicago Tribune, and his book chronicles three strikes in Decatur, Illinois in the 1990s and the lasting scars they left on the community. The work really began, Franklin says, "way back when I was at Michigan and meandered about, thinking about how to deal with laid-off workers." Studs Terkel gave the book a blurb, calling it "labor reporting at its best."
What You See in Clear Water: Life on the Wind River Reservation is the latest book by Geoffrey O'Gara '88 . What You See recounts the history of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, including a recent battle for water rights between the Indians of the reservation and neighboring white farmers. The book, which came out in paperback last year, won an award for best nonfiction from the Western Writers of America. O'Gara is serving this year as a visiting writer at the University of Wyoming.
Robert Press '86 says his book on Africa is "a direct outgrowth" of his Michigan fellowship year. The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent came out in 1999 from the University of Florida Press, with 90 photographs by Robert's wife, Betty (who got started in photography through courses at Michigan). Based on hundreds of interviews, the book charts the surge of democracy in Africa in the early 1990s, often from the point of view of activists and ordinary people.
Press, a former correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, has started a website, The New Africa Concept, "for people who care about Africa and the people of Africa."
Michele Stanush '95has written a fact-based novel with her father, Claude Stanush, called All Honest Men, coming out in April from Permanent Press. The novel, which received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, is based on the true story of J. Willis Newton, a Texas sharecropper's son who became one of the most successful bank robbers ever.
Stanush also won a screenwriting contest in Texas for her script, "The Hole Thing" (loosely based on a short story by her father), "an oddball dramedy" about a guy with a passion for all kinds of holes (sinkholes, gravel pits, mole holes, rigatoni, etc.) Stanush says she is revising the script, which already has generated interest.
