An American Affair
by Mark Brazaitis
Texas Review Press, 2005
An American Affair is the winner of the 2004 George Garrett Fiction Prize: Stories. Written by WVU English Professor Mark Brazaitis, this is a collection of 12 poignant stories. The characters in all stories have multifaceted lives intertwined with culture clashes and personal desires. Set in mostly in Latin America, the characters deal with personal and intimate issues, including tragedy, infidelity, and insecurity.
Lost Highway
by Richard Currey
Vandalia Press, 2005
This second edition of the critically acclaimed novel chronicles the life and times of a musician trying to make his way in a changing world and contains previously unpublished material.
Lost Highway is the story of Sapper Reeves, a banjoist who loves his music as much as he loves life and his family; a man who struggles to make his music known. Constantly on the road, the gifted banjo picker perpetually struggles to reconcile his turbulent and difficult musical career—but while he can shine on the bandstand, his life away from gigs is shadowed with an increasingly turbulent family life that includes his frustrated wife and a son wounded in the Vietnam War.
Lost Highway is Currey’s third novel. His first book, Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
A Better Place
by David Selby
Quarrier Press, 2005
David Selby, ’63 BA and ’65 MA, a Morgantown native, offers a tribute to West Virginia and its people. Part memoir and part social commentary, the actor best known for his roles as Quentin Collins on the TV series Dark Shadows and Richard Channing on Falcon Crest examines the lasting effects of an Appalachian upbringing. He discusses his family, pollution, and the chronic appearance of the state at the bottom of most national indicators of health and well-being, among other subjects.
Selby quotes WVU Professor Ruel Foster who wrote about West Virginia: “‘The mystery lies in the fact that place has a more lasting identity than we have, and we tend to attach ourselves to identity and thus to place.’” This reflects David Selby’s connection to West Virginia as indicated when he says “West Virginia was proudly ingrained in my pores . . . It is my history. It is in my blood, the nature of my being.”
A History of Crime and Criminal Justice in America
by Willard Oliver and James Hilgenberg
Allyn and Bacon Publishing, 2005
This text provides an overview of the origin and development of the American criminal justice system from the arrival of the first settlers during the Colonial period into the twenty-first century.
Each chapter begins with an overview of the political, economic, social, and cultural forces that shaped society within each time period. Following the overview, the history of ordinary crime as well as extraordinary high profile criminal acts, such as Shays’s Rebellion in 1786 and 1787, and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, are examined. The text uses the discussion of historical context and crime as a foundation to describe and analyze the development and impact of police, law, courts, corrections, and juvenile justice.
Contact with Ancient America
by Ida Jane Gallagher and
Warren W. Dexter
Sovereign Books Terrace, 2004
Author Ida Jane Gallagher became interested in North American antiquities when the Grave Creek Tablet was excavated from the Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, West Virginia. Decipherers finally read the tablet’s Iberian Punic script as a funeral inscription. This piece of history stirred up controversy in archaeological and epigraphic circles, which is detailed in the book.
Text and photographs detail the authors’ research, which encompassed five continents and fascinating experiences over 28 years of research. The authors trace evidence of early foreign contact with North American people from 7,500 years ago to the Colonial period. Also included is an overview of little known folklore, mystical practices, and Native American traditions.
Grady’s Tour: Lieutenant John Grady’s Tour of Duty in the Korean War
by John H. Gallagher
Sovereign Terrace Books, 2004
The characters are fictitious, but this historical novel draws, in part, from records of the Korean War and some events in the Army-McCarthy dispute.
The story follows fictional Lieutenant John Grady as he begins training at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to North Korea, where he is trapped behind Chinese lines. Grady is later stationed again at Fort Monmouth where he is involved with a couple of odd problems. First, his commanding general issues a regulation that requires soldiers who have auto accidents be court-martialed. Then, Senator Joe McCarthy alleges that a Communist spy ring is operating in the Signal Corps. Grady deals with both problems while courting a local girl.