Prof. Brenda Wineapple, author of
a biography on Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a guest on C-SPAN's
“Booknotes” with host Brian Lamb on Sunday, Jan. 4.
Wineapple, the Doris Zemurray
Stone Professor in Modern Literary and Historical Studies, talked with Lamb
about what she discovered about the 19th-century literary figure she
said is “a cross between Stephen King and Kafka.” Her book is titled Hawthorne: A Life.
Among her discoveries was a trunk
full of letters supplied by a descendent of the author that revealed a great
deal about Hawthorne's life at home
with his family.
The full transcript of Wineapple's
interview with Lamb, in which she talks about her teaching at Union,
can be found through the show's web site at http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1761
Also this week, Wineapple was the
first source in a lighthearted story in the Chronicle
of Higher Education about the tendency of academics to use the colon in
titles of their works. “I hate colons,” she was quoted as saying, noting that
she wrote the title for her previous book, Sister
Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein, without a colon, as Gertrude might have.
“Nobody can handle that,” Wineapple said. “Anyone who ever talks about the book
puts it on.”