his laptop in there. But don’t look at his screen. I think he knows he is typing nonsense but doesn’t want anyone to see. He wants everyone to think he’s writing a book.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Charlie says.
“Room 118,” says the nurse. “Have a nice time.”
Gill Gulliver, Charlie’s father, began teaching at Grinnell College in 1982, four years before Charlie was born. The country was rattled by recession and Gill Gulliver, toting a doctorate in English literature from the University of Michigan, arrived in Grinnell driving an old Ford Fairmont wagon that he’d bought used a week before. He was thirty years old and single.
There were so few jobs that year, but Gill had landed a temporary two-year visiting gig out in the prairies of Iowa. He’d known of Grinnell—a reputable and shakily prestigious (in the Midwestern sense of the word) liberal arts college with a lefty bent. The campus, in August, was beautiful enough, as compelling and green as any campus in late summer, but noticeably flat, and his office in an old brick building, tucked away on the third floor between the offices of an ancient Joyce scholar and a maudlin historian, was the kind of place that a young professor might do a great deal of writing. His goal was simple: to spend two quiet years of teaching at Grinnell, working on shaping his Ph.D. thesis—“The Glamorous Tragedy of Unbridled Optimism: The Fall of JayGatsby and the Rise of Ronald Reagan”—into a publishable book.
Gill did not buy a house, but lived, instead, in one half of a duplex owned by the college, a short walk from his office. His routine bordered on the monastic. Each morning, he woke at five, exercised—a vigorous run followed by calisthenics and dumbbell work in the duplex’s empty second bedroom—then showered, ate a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of fruit, drank black coffee, and left for the office. He always arrived by seven, the first one to show up on the third floor. He would work on his own book, expanding, revising, and annotating it, until ten o’clock, when he would open his office door and shift into teacher mode. Lines outside his door were long. He was a charismatic teacher, with wild eyes and wavy long hair and a sartorial sense that was often missing in academia. Charlie had seen the pictures and saw them again now, on the walls of his father’s study: Gill Gulliver with his first tutorial class; Gill Gulliver with his award-winning independent study students; Gill Gulliver accepting the President’s Medal; Gill Gulliver speaking at commencement, the wind blowing his hair and his robe and perhaps even his mustache in a way that suggested something epic.
It was Gill Gulliver’s desire for stability, for routine, and for stoically Puritanical work habits, that—after one sexually thrilling and ultimately heartbreaking affair—attracted him to the woman who would become Charlie’s mother, Kathy Mulligan. Kathy had, on a few occasions, referred to the “woman Gill would never get over,” but Charlie had only overheard such talk in late-night, alcohol-fueled arguments, and he didn’t know the full story. Gill Gulliver, by all accounts, had been drawn to Kathy instantly: she was raven haired, complicatedly attractive, and desperately bored, a lifelong Iowan who had spent four years commuting to Iowa City because she couldn’t afford the college that was literally in her front yard.
When Gill Gulliver’s visiting professorship turned into a tenure-track position, he had the brief idea that he might leave Grinnell anyway, head east or west or at least to one of the more prestigious public land-grant schools of the Midwest, but there were still sofew jobs available, and besides, he hadn’t finished the book yet, and Kathy had her mother to care for (she was an only child), and so, why not, why not accept a position at Grinnell when they offered him one? He did so, thinking that once Kathy’s mother had passed away (her health seemed
“Well, that makes sense,” Charlie says.
“Room 118,” says the nurse. “Have a nice time.”
Gill Gulliver, Charlie’s father, began teaching at Grinnell College in 1982, four years before Charlie was born. The country was rattled by recession and Gill Gulliver, toting a doctorate in English literature from the University of Michigan, arrived in Grinnell driving an old Ford Fairmont wagon that he’d bought used a week before. He was thirty years old and single.
There were so few jobs that year, but Gill had landed a temporary two-year visiting gig out in the prairies of Iowa. He’d known of Grinnell—a reputable and shakily prestigious (in the Midwestern sense of the word) liberal arts college with a lefty bent. The campus, in August, was beautiful enough, as compelling and green as any campus in late summer, but noticeably flat, and his office in an old brick building, tucked away on the third floor between the offices of an ancient Joyce scholar and a maudlin historian, was the kind of place that a young professor might do a great deal of writing. His goal was simple: to spend two quiet years of teaching at Grinnell, working on shaping his Ph.D. thesis—“The Glamorous Tragedy of Unbridled Optimism: The Fall of JayGatsby and the Rise of Ronald Reagan”—into a publishable book.
Gill did not buy a house, but lived, instead, in one half of a duplex owned by the college, a short walk from his office. His routine bordered on the monastic. Each morning, he woke at five, exercised—a vigorous run followed by calisthenics and dumbbell work in the duplex’s empty second bedroom—then showered, ate a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of fruit, drank black coffee, and left for the office. He always arrived by seven, the first one to show up on the third floor. He would work on his own book, expanding, revising, and annotating it, until ten o’clock, when he would open his office door and shift into teacher mode. Lines outside his door were long. He was a charismatic teacher, with wild eyes and wavy long hair and a sartorial sense that was often missing in academia. Charlie had seen the pictures and saw them again now, on the walls of his father’s study: Gill Gulliver with his first tutorial class; Gill Gulliver with his award-winning independent study students; Gill Gulliver accepting the President’s Medal; Gill Gulliver speaking at commencement, the wind blowing his hair and his robe and perhaps even his mustache in a way that suggested something epic.
It was Gill Gulliver’s desire for stability, for routine, and for stoically Puritanical work habits, that—after one sexually thrilling and ultimately heartbreaking affair—attracted him to the woman who would become Charlie’s mother, Kathy Mulligan. Kathy had, on a few occasions, referred to the “woman Gill would never get over,” but Charlie had only overheard such talk in late-night, alcohol-fueled arguments, and he didn’t know the full story. Gill Gulliver, by all accounts, had been drawn to Kathy instantly: she was raven haired, complicatedly attractive, and desperately bored, a lifelong Iowan who had spent four years commuting to Iowa City because she couldn’t afford the college that was literally in her front yard.
When Gill Gulliver’s visiting professorship turned into a tenure-track position, he had the brief idea that he might leave Grinnell anyway, head east or west or at least to one of the more prestigious public land-grant schools of the Midwest, but there were still sofew jobs available, and besides, he hadn’t finished the book yet, and Kathy had her mother to care for (she was an only child), and so, why not, why not accept a position at Grinnell when they offered him one? He did so, thinking that once Kathy’s mother had passed away (her health seemed
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