Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession,
Richard Wightman Fox, ’66, MA ’74
HarperSanFrancisco, 2004
$27.95

Fox, a history professor at the University of Southern California, surveys the influence of Jesus on U.S. culture and politics as well as religion, from the arrival of Europeans to the present day. He pays special attention to changing musical, cinematic and literary interpretations. Fox concludes that no other figure has played a more prominent role as national hero, and that this is unlikely to change soon “because Christians find him useful as a means of congratulating themselves, and because so many find him indispensable as a critic of their self-congratulation.”

Mayor of the Roses: Stories
Marianne Villanueva, MA '81, MA '85
Miami (Ohio) U. Press, 2005
$13.00

These 18 stories revolve around Filipino-Americans and the dynamics of families strained by separation, emigration and the contrasts between American and Philippine culture. The sad but stoic narrative voice belongs to a Filipina whose memories and imaginings of her childhood in Manila are never far below the surface as she grapples with life in Silicon Valley and estrangement from her husband.

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
Patricia Ryan Madson,
Crown Publishing Group, 2005
$16.00

Madson, a senior lecturer in drama retiring this June, has applied her expertise in stage improvisation to life, asserting that it, too, is something we all make up as we go along. Her cheerful, example-packed primer, written over more than 20 years, offers 13 maxims—start anywhere; say yes; make mistakes—and practical advice on how to implement them.

Venereal Disease and the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Thomas P. Lowry, '54, MD '57
U. of Nebraska Press, 2004
$21.95

The Corps of Discovery epic has been retold from many viewpoints, and now it’s the spirochetes’ turn. Lowry, a retired psychiatrist and clinical professor, explains how gonorrhea and syphilis posed threats to the explorers and native populations that were “as dangerous as grizzly bears, snakes, warfare, and slippery trails.” Suffering resulted from toxic and ineffective treatments as well as the diseases.

The White League
Thomas Zigal, MA '74
The Toby Press, 2005
$19.95

The league is a secret society that purportedly pulls all the strings in New Orleans. The plot describes the blackmailing of a businessman by an old fraternity brother, a white supremacist who is running for governor in 1990. Zigal writes about conscience, privilege and racism in what his publisher calls a “crawfish boil of a novel.”

Doctor Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Wartime Celebrity
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, '91, MA '93, PhD '98
UC Press, 2005
$21.95

The title refers to the 1,500-odd servicemen physician Margaret Chung “adopted” during World War II. She gained social and political clout through her energetic war efforts, fame for her weekly salons in San Francisco and notoriety for her lesbian liaisons.

The Black Canary
Jane Louise Curry, '62, PhD '69
Simon and Schuster, 2005
$16.95

James, 13, comes from a musical family but resists cultivating his own beautiful voice. When a time-travel portal drops him into 1600 London, he finds himself in a children’s performing group serving Queen Elizabeth. Curry, a veteran novelist for young readers, pays special attention to the ways a biracial kid from Pittsburgh is perceived in a city that has known few “Africans,” let alone 21st-century Americans.

Through a Portagee Gate
Charles Reis Felix, '50
U. of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 2004
$20

Felix grew up during the Depression in the Portuguese immigrant community of New Bedford, Mass. His autobiography, crafted like a novel, abounds in colorful characters, poignant anecdotes and gritty observations of life in his hometown and as an elementary school teacher in Northern California. In Felix’s eyes, the hero of the piece is clearly not himself, but his shoemaker father.

Most Wanted
Michele Martinez (Campbell), JD '89
William Morrow, 2005
$23.95

Using expertise from her days as a federal prosecutor, the author has written a thriller about the home-invasion murder of a prominent New York City lawyer. Her ambitious Latina heroine juggles the harrowing criminal investigation and lots of domestic stress: an unfaithful husband, an infant daughter, a prima donna nanny and a flirt-worthy FBI agent. A second Melanie Vargas novel is due next March.