The Journal

Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: Lifestyle

Media Credit: Laila Wessel Adjunct professor in the creative writing department Kathleen Finneran reads from one of her most recently published novels, "The Tender Land: A Family Love Story" Nov. 8 in the Pearson House.

It sounded like she was talking through new dentures as she read.

"I'm talking around cough drops," said Kathleen Finneran, interrupting herself. "I hope that after the first few minutes you won't notice anymore."

Finneran, creative writing adjunct professor and author of "The Tender Land: A Family Love Story," read from her new work "Motherhood Once Removed" to a room packed with about 35 Nov. 8 in Pearson House.

Finneran was introduced by David Clewell, professor in the English department, who welcomed her as the newest regular adjunct member of the creative writing faculty. Finneran currently teaches creative nonfiction and autobiography writing. She is also a visiting writer in residence at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

"I can assure you that this book is not a 'me'moir," Clewell said. "Her dance of the language connects all of us together."

"Motherhood Once Removed" deals with Finneran's experiences of being an aunt to a wide age range. Her eldest niece is 26 years old, and her youngest nephew is 5.

Finneran began her reading with a passage about Sarah, her eldest niece, who was 22 at the time of the story. Sarah had asked Finneran if there was luggage she could borrow. Finneran was torn between the desire to help her niece and her fear that Sarah would never return from Los Angeles.

"Being an aunt puts in a different position than being a mother," Finneran said.

In the end, Finneran lent Sarah the first suitcase Finneran had ever received, "a powder blue suitcase equivalent of a polyester leisure suit," she said. Finneran resisted the desire to put a warning pamphlet about abusive relationships into the suitcase. Sarah was moving to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, whom the rest of the family liked, but he also fulfilled 12 of the 15 warning points in the pamphlet.

"It was the good in him that complicated and clouded our concern," Finneran said.

Finneran ended with a piece from "The Tender Land: A Family Love Story," about a bike ride she took with her brother Sean two weeks before he committed suicide at the age of 15.

"I read ("The Tender Land: A Family Love Story") and really liked it," said Jordan Crean, a senior English major. "I also have (Finneran) for class."

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