"From Ohio with Love: A Cold War Memoir," a Reading by William Marling

Raised by Irish and German parents who had survived the Depression and WW2, young Billy was drafted into his family’s business at age 5. It was the era of fallout shelters, air-raid drills, household thrift, and an emphasis on physical fitness. Everyone had to be ready for Russian attacks. But it was also an era of small pleasures: penny candy, the discovery of art and great teachers, swimming pools, and forbidden romances. While Marling worked summers and after-school in factories and restaurants, his inner-city high school was so torn by race riots and Vietnam War protests that it was featured in LIFE magazine. He ended up leaving Ohio, but it always tugged at him.

“A terrific book that captures the oddly blank momentum with which a child collides with experiences, rules where rules weren't anticipated, emergent instincts, sudden solemnity, and character begins to emerge. It's almost literally true that I couldn't put it down.” Steven Justice, Professor of English Emeritus, Berkeley.
William Marling teaches American and World Literature, as well as Film. He has written seven scholarly books, four general interest books, and over 80 chapters and articles on subjects ranging from anarchism to Edgar Allen Poe. Twice a Fulbright Professor, he was the Edward Said Chair in Beirut, the Bryant Drake Chair in Japan, and the French Ministry of Education Professor twice. In the 1980s he pioneered the use of computers in the humanities, creating two websites nominated for awards: “Modernism: The American Salons” and “Detective Novels,” bringing over $750,000 in grants to the university. His teaching has been recognized in a Diekhoff nomination and three Wittke nominations.

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