An Unsentimental Education: Writers and Chicago

By Molly McQuade

"Writers are both born and made, and their teachers share in the making of them, but in what ways?" Molly McQuade asks in An Unsentimental Education, a collection of candid interviews with twenty-one of our leading novelists and poets. Presented as first-person essays, the interviews are with contemporary writers who have studied, taught at, or cultivated other ties with the University of Chicago. The book provides an occasion for the writers to reflect on their Chicago experiences and on ideas about education in general. What education does a writer need? How can formal learning impel the writing life? What school stories or tales told out of school do Philip Roth, Hayden Carruth, Marguerite Young, George Steiner, Charles Simic, Susan Sontag, and Saul Bellow have in store and want to share.

Interviews with: Saul Bellow, Paul Carroll, Hayden Carruth, Robert Coover, Leon Forrest, June Jordan, Janet Kauffman, Morris Philipson, M. L. Rosenthal, Philip Roth, Susan Fromberg Shaeffer, Charles Simic, Susan Sontag, George Starbuck, George Steiner, Richard Stern, Nathaniel Tarn, Douglas Unger, Kurt Vonnegut, and Marguerite Young.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226562107
• ISBN13: 9780226562100
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great writers from a great school

Molly McQuade has assembled a fine collection of interviews/essays from some of the finest writers the University of Chicago has produced. Writers including Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Richard Stern, Hayden Carruth, etc., give their thoughts on the art of the written word, and how Chicago (both the city and the school) has affected their careers and lives. The interviews have been converted to fluidly written essays which make for entertaining and often enlightening reading. From Carruth's words on his devotion to beauty in language, to Paul Carroll's essay on treasured teachers, religion, and censorship, this book will surely stir up a cauldron of ideas for anyone who has ever had ambitions of becoming a writer. I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the writers, while shaking my head as I read others. Though this book will likely have more relevance for readers who are connected to the University of Chicago, I think that any reader will find something to like about these essays. The topics considered include not only writing, but education and teaching, controversy, racism, history, and beyond. Underneath it all lies the idea that this one school was somehow different, somehow special among American institutions, allowing it to give to its students and professors a unique vision and insight. True to the title, the writers forego any maudlin nostalgia, and simply tell it like it is.