#kentreads

http://chancellor.syr.edu/messages/m/fine-books.html

Dear Chancellor Kent,

  I am pleased you are reading faculty books. And I know you will be getting to my first book soon, An Historiography of the Migrating Sea Turtle and its Prey. But sir, I take offence at your categorization of it as a "Fine" book. With all respect, that motherfucker took me ten years to get out, considering it began as my dissertation. You cannot call ten years of man's work "fine" and get away with it.

  I started the research for that book before I went grey. I was in my twenties, and thought a trip to the Galapagos would be a perfect start to my dissertation research. I even logged the day and time I began that work in my first field journal, August 11th, 1998, 10:10am. And I filled ten journals on that trip alone observing the mating behaviors of the speckled sea turtle. More research trips and writing hours that I can count have been spent on those turtles. My wife was pregnant and giving birth in 2001 and I missed it because I was observing the black speckled sea turtle lay it's own eggs. And Virginia *still* doesn't let me live that one down. Even though I dedicated the book to her and mentioned her in the acknowledgements. When my second daughter was christened, in 2002, I had to leave church early just to reformat my dissertation page numbers to the new Grad school requirements before the filing deadline or I was going to lose my post-doc that we were moving to one week later. And then, when my contract with Oxford Press fell through because the editor suddenly was retiring and they were going to review everything *again* and my book had ALREADY gone through peer review and I had made the changes before they recommended that I go to another press, that was a whole other 2.5 years. And all that hassle with Oxford Press, yep, you betcha, went down over Thanksgiving weekend. 

Those British bastards didn't realize they ruined my holiday at the in-laws, where I had to explain, AGAIN, that my book wasn't meant to make money and the reason it was taking so long to publish wasn't because it was boring. When the reviews finally came back from Duke, 8 months late, may I add, and I made those changes, (my wife still holds over me that I missed Timmy's Little League tournament when I was making those reviews) it was still another year before I even got the contract. So finally, in 2008, I got my final page proofs, and the book came out in 2009. Which, in case the library's copy is checked out, the ISBN is here: 978-3-16-148410-0.

  So in conclusion, my first book took more than ten years to complete, almost ruined my marriage with Virginia, and you damn well better recognize that work as more than just FINE. It is stellar work. It is what got me hired. And it was rated 4 our of 5 stars in the Leesville County Gazette, I'll have you know. 

  But, you will be happy to know that my second book, An History of the Genealogy of African Clawless Otter and their Predators, is coming along smoothly. Thanks to a sabbatical, I wrote that sucker in eight months (also on threat that my wife would leave me for being obsessed with writing about sea creatures while making no money). I'll be sure to send over a copy once it comes out for you to review on your blog.

  Best,