This column first appeared on May 5, 2010, when I learned of the death of Alan Sillitoe, one of my favorite writers. I wrote this about the first short story that I read by Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
In the summer of my freshman year (1973) in high school, I worked the switchboard at DeSmet Jesuit High school in Creve Coeur, Missouri. It was a work-study program. I would do my runs mid-afternoon with Brother Jim, our cross country coach, then head over to the front office to work the switchboard for four to five hours on Monday nights and Wednesday nights.
During that summer, I learned the joy of summer training and summer reading. (The coat of arms is that of DeSmet).
I truly enjoyed the evenings, as one or two of my favorite teachers would show up and chat
about something. There was Father John Apel, our math teacher and assistant freshman football coach, who was thoughtfully insane. Or perhaps, one of the lay teachers might come by to visit and challenge. Mr. Faust, for example, the theatre arts teacher, might come by and regale me with nonsense about the myth of the intelligent athlete. Or maybe, Mr. Burns, our art teacher/freshman football coach, who opened my eyes to the importance of a creative outlet, might come by and ask if I was drawing during the summer.
Once in a while, Father Houlihan would come by. As the principal of DeSmet, Father Houlihan taught the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek, to a hand-picked class in senior year. Father Houlihan was a man of the earth. One wanted his respect and knew that, while Father H possessed the power over heaven and earth in this small world, he was a man of integrity. I wanted to get in that class. DeSmet was inhabited by a wonderful cast of characters who have shaped me to this day. These were men and women, who believed that the pursuit of knowledge was a lifelong task, and that, if they could influence teenage men to have an interest in something besides sex and sports, that their life had meaning.
During the dinner break on switchboard nights, which we shared with the Jesuits, ( I would eat in the room off the kitchen), I would sometimes get a visit from Mr. Freeman.
Mr. Freeman was the sophomore English teacher and was pleasantly surprised at my summer reading list. I was reading Salinger, Knowles, and Twain that summer. Mr. Freeman told me that I needed a reading list.
So, the next week, he gave me a note, Fifty books one must read to be a man.
On the list were, among others, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, St. Augustine, Teilhard de Chardin, Ignatius de Loyola, St. Francis, ee cummings, Salinger, George Orwell, Lao-Tse, Herman Hesse, and Alan Sillitoe.
Each writer, each book, was like opening a new world for me. Many of the books I have reread over the past three decades. The one that has stayed with me has been Alan Sillitoe.
I first read The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner in the summer of my fifteenth year. I understood Colin, I was both shocked and pleased when he stopped running the race (although at that time, I hoped to just place in a race).
At fifteen, I identified with Colin, and understood his frustration with life and his his circumstances. Sillitoe caught the frustration and the angst of being a teenager. He got us.
Rest in peace Alan Sillitoe, 1928-2010.
