Now a Major Motion Picture

It's a rare thing. To be a scholar of some (small) repute on a minor English writer is reward enough itself. The joy is in the work.

Nevertheless, when that minor writer has his best book adapted into a film,  there are many other pleasures, small though they may be. I've been very pleased to watch Christopher Isherwood's novel, A Single Man, climb up the Amazon.com best-sellers list since the release in December of a recent adaptation, starring Colin Firth. The novel's publisher, the University of Minnesota Press, came out with a movie-tie in version of the book in early December. My very casual eye has seen it break the top 500 on Amazon. Not bad for a book 45 years old.

The press has set up its own page devoted to the novel.

As I said, the joy is in the work. So, with the help of the UMP, I pitched an article about the novel to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the most-read national publication dealing with college and university issues. I enlisted my sometime collaborator, Chris Freeman, to write about the genesis of Isherwood's novel in his own experience teaching in southern California universities. The article, called "Isherwood the Multiculturalist," can now be seen online at The Chronicle Review. It's password protected (ooh, we're "premium content") for now.

Oh yeah, you can also watch the trailer for the film online.