No trailer parks, no incest, no hyped-up drama, just beautiful writing and a moving, complex story that circles around a group of attractive characters - all of whom you slowly grow to know well, but will never discover all their secrets. I CAN'T STAND modern fiction - but this is something else. Try it - it's as good as JP Marquand.

The stories in this interlocked collection are all finely wrought, but they fail to reach any conclusions. The protaganist, Peter Sackrider, is indecisive, if not lost. Most of the stories recount various misadventures that befall him. In almost every case he fails to exert himself on those around him. Taken in full, his passivity is almost maddening! Undoubtedly the author meant him to be this way, but a dose of masculinity wouldn't hurt. At times he seems like a genuine wimp. While he is sympathetic and compassionate to those around him, a dose of testosterone wouldn't hurt. But then, he wouldn't be Peter Sackrider. I would have liked to see Dwight Allen explore this and other characters with greater range.

Former New Yorker staff member Dwight Allen makes his novelistic debut with a nuanced, likable series of interconnected stories, The Green Suit. These vignettes revolve around the Sackriders, an apple pie American family consisting of father, mother, daughter and son. They're a cosseted Kentucky foursome tended to by Willie who is "short and wide, a formidable squarish shape, like something not easily knocked over." She smokes Salems, cooks, cleans, and when she launders removes a joint from son Peter's shirt pocket. Father Sackrider is a judge who enjoys taking his ease by fishing. He's a man "who secretly believed that catching a fish could make your blood rush and your soul expand all at once." Mother Sackrider listens to classical music, gains strength from a murky health drink, and is constantly piqued by a neighborhood dog's desecration of her garden. Daughter Alex, affectionately called "Moony Tooth," has been to college in Philadelphia where she fell in love with Ed, "a sallow-skinned, lank-haired boy whose chief interest in life was the effects of hallucinogens on the neurochemistry of white rats." Ed's defection causes Alex to become temporarily unbalanced, and she tries to take her own life. She is then sent for therapy to Queen of Peace, "a columned and porticoed institution that sat on a hill about a mile from the new county zoo." But this book is primarily about Peter. It's about Peter's pursuit of girls - Lizzie, Mary Lee, Petra, a friend's "barely legal girlfriend," well, you get the picture. It's also about Peter's desire to be a writer or an editor; he's not quite sure. He has trouble, you see, with decisions and commitment as becomes evident when he eventually marries. At 23 Peter deems himself ready for New York. He'd been out of college for a year, so he "could read, conjugate Latin verbs........and handle a mop and a bucket." Once in the City he finds employment with a venerable, laid back publishing house. His venerable, laid back boss "gave off a scent that was a mix of talcum powder, butterscotch candy, and decrepitude." It is also in New York that the title story, The Green Suit," takes place. We meet Elvin, a building superintendent, clad in a "lizardy green" suit. "The trousers were flared and the jacket lapels were as big as wings........The suit glowed in the sulphurous glow of the street lights, but it would have glowed in pitch dark, too." Elvin is a man who has accepted his lot. He'd rather be the Sultan of Swing than a building superintendent, but as he says, "....you got to deal with the cards that get dealt to you." Peter might well have benefitted from a dose of this wisdom as he seems to stumble and bumble his way through the years. Nonetheless, in the deft hands of this author Peter's journey is a pleasant one for the reader, filled with comic characters, laughable fixes, and poignant moments, The Green Suit is a worthy debut signaling the promise of finer fare to come.

Former New Yorker staff member Dwight Allen makes his novelistic debut with a nuanced, likable series of interconnected stories, The Green Suit. These vignettes revolve around the Sackriders, an apple pie American family consisting of father, mother, daughter and son. They're a cosseted Kentucky foursome tended to by Willie who is "short and wide, a formidable squarish shape, like something not easily knocked over." She smokes Salems, cooks, cleans, and when she launders removes a joint from son Peter's shirt pocket. Father Sackrider is a judge who enjoys taking his ease by fishing. He's a man "who secretly believed that catching a fish could make your blood rush and your soul expand all at once." Mother Sackrider listens to classical music, gains strength from a murky health drink, and is constantly piqued by a neighborhood dog's desecration of her garden. Daughter Alex, affectionately called "Moony Tooth," has been to college in Philadelphia where she fell in love with Ed, "a sallow-skinned, lank-haired boy whose chief interest in life was the effects of hallucinogens on the neurochemistry of white rats." Ed's defection causes Alex to become temporarily unbalanced, and she tries to take her own life. She is then sent for therapy to Queen of Peace, "a columned and porticoed institution that sat on a hill about a mile from the new county zoo." But this book is primarily about Peter. It's about Peter's pursuit of girls - Lizzie, Mary Lee, Petra, a friend's "barely legal girlfriend," well, you get the picture. It's also about Peter's desire to be a writer or an editor; he's not quite sure. He has trouble, you see, with decisions and commitment as becomes evident when he eventually marries. At 23 Peter deems himself ready for New York. He'd been out of college for a year, so he "could read, conjugate Latin verbs........and handle a mop and a bucket." Once in the City he finds employment with a venerable, laid back publishing house. His venerable, laid back boss "gave off a scent that was a mix of talcum powder, butterscotch candy, and decrepitude." It is also in New York that the title story, The Green Suit," takes place. We meet Elvin, a building superintendent, clad in a "lizardy green" suit. "The trousers were flared and the jacket lapels were as big as wings........The suit glowed in the sulphurous glow of the street lights, but it would have glowed in pitch dark, too." Elvin is a man who has accepted his lot. He'd rather be the Sultan of Swing than a building superintendent, but as he says, "....you got to deal with the cards that get dealt to you." Peter might well have benefitted from a dose of this wisdom as he seems to stumble and bumble his way through the years. Nonetheless, in the deft hands of this author Peter's journey is a pleasant one for the reader, filled with comic characters, laughable fixes, and poignant moments, The Green Suit is a worthy debut signaling the promise of finer fare to come.

The topic of school reform and paying teachers as professional is not a new topic. The proposals put forth in the book written by Allen and Cosby are fairly detailed and generous to educational reform. Many of the proposals, such as the infusion of technology into the curriculum, higher pay for teachers, etc., sound like current practices within Edison Schools, Inc. However, current views would include that there never seems to be money set aside for education, and local and state legislatures have been cutting educational funding over the past few years. I have doubts that the amount of funding required for a project of this magnitude could actually be undertaken.

After additional research on this book, I would like to note that it was published in October 2000, over 1½ years ago. The website listed in the book for further updates, support of this project, etc., lists that nearly every one of its pages is under constructions. Readers are not able to read survey results or add their own opinions concerning this project. Is this a legitimate proposal or just a dream? With out follow through for this text, I am inclined to believe that this is not a legitimate proposal developed by Allen and Cosby.

Drs. Allen and Cosby have written a magnificent book detailing a workable answer to our school system plight. Now it is up to us to take the challenge. Do we understand how important is it to truly educate our youth? Are we ready to take the challenge or are we just going to say yes its nice, or too much work and just let things fall by the wayside. All parents should read this book and join together to demand a change to our schools so the children of today will be the well-educated leaders of the future.

Every year, I purchase New Stories from the South, but I always buy last year's, in paperback, then I might take another few months to read it. So I've just finished the 2000 issue and will start on 2001 one of these days (I have it in my pile of books somewhere). I never regret having purchased or read these anthologies. They always include good writers, both new and familiar, and the stories are an interesting combination of themes, locales and styles. The South is a part, sometimes subtle, but always there, and the characters are seldom sterotypical, their stories never trite. Pick up any of these issues. The stories are timeless.

One wonders a bit at the subtitle: The Year's Best, 2000, and then one remembers this collection, the latest in a long line of such anthologies stretching back to the 1980's, was edited by Algonquin Books' Shannon Ravenel, and she knows more about these things probably than anybody else.

Nevertheless, I would call this a mixed bag of Southern storytelling. Allan Gurganus's "He's at the Office" has a clever premise, one familiar to anyone from a close-knit, aging family, and once again showcases Gurganus's sharp eye for detail and razzmatazz prose style, but the ending is silly and the story collapses because of it. R.H.W. Dillard's "Forgetting the End of the World" seems much ado about nothing and strains for a significance it most certainly does not achieve. These are two of the weaker links in the chain. Among the stronger ones are "Mr. Puniverse", a marvelous comedy of unrequited passion, Romulus Linney's "The Widow", which has the rhythm and cadence of a good Appalachian folk ballad, Melanie Sumner's "Good Hearted Woman", the book's longest piece and most obvious crowd pleaser, about a young woman's confrontations with work, love, and family, and Margie Rabb's "How to Tell a Story," my own favorite of the bunch, and an incisive, very moving, and all-too-true look at the dog eat dog world of university creative writing programs and one young writer's determination to tell stories despite what happens to her and the stories she tells.

This is an attractively designed paperback. Each story ends with an author biography, with the writer revealing why he/she wrote that particular story.

You need to understand that this is a college text book and as a result, the writing is a little inflated. That being said, the author presents a good premise and makes his case very well, showing how Eisenhower's use of public relations agencies, Robert Montgomery, and others helped the GOP and the President in particular fare very well in the public's eye. The account of how the Presidential news conference was created (to avoid the President's message from being "interpreted" by the reporters or having the press neglect the message the White House wanted to get out) is very informative and something viewers of modern day news conference should keep in mind as well. Good book that also goes a long way in dispelling the notion that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a do-nothing President.

Paul's letter to Philemon is generally read as a plea to forgive and accept back a runaway slave named Onesimus. Starting with John Chrysostom in the fourth century AD, commentators have invariably maintained that the apostle was interceding on behalf of a thieving slave in flight from his rightfully angry master. But Chrysostom's interpretation had more to do with his own situation in the 300's, in a day when a serious anti-slavery movement had been challenging Roman hegemony. Chrysostom repsonded to this situation with a theological interpretation that was "humane while conservative", enjoining masters to treat their slaves fairly, slaves to obey their masters and eschew rebellion. Paul's letter to Philemon, for the first time, was interpreted as a moral commending "genteel despotism and servile obedience".

Allen Dwight Callahan proposes a very different reading of Paul's letter to Philemon. He argues that Onesimus is not in fact Philemon's slave, but rather his own brother. Due to some past injustice Philemon hated his brother and refused to have any dealings with him. When Paul was imprisoned and still needed to work closely with his colleague (Philemon), he sent Onesimus in his place -- whom Paul loved like a son -- and assured Philemon that he would pay the damages for Onesimus' past injustices himself. In other words, Paul's letter to Philemon is not about reconciling differences between a master and slave; it's about reconciling differences between two estranged brothers.

Callahan is certainly correct to protest the traditional interpretation stemming from Chrysostom in the patristic period. Paul's letter to Philemon is not about commending masterly charity and servile obedience. But Callahan's alternative interpretation has an obvious problem. His exegesis becomes forced and strained when it comes to verse 16 -- "accept Onesimus back, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother". It's pretty clear that Onesimus is Philemon's slave, and that Paul is simply asking Philemon to free him. But despite my disagreement with Callahan, this commentary is an important contribution to Pauline studies.

Dr.Callahan must be commended for submitting this intriguing proposal the the world of NT scholarship. Callahan must be applauded for bringing to light the fraternal/paternal bonds that dictated the tempo of Greek society. But, contrary to Callahan's argument, Philemon and Onesimus are not blood brothers. The slave readings that he has so wilfully dismissed is erroneous. His final thesis is fueled by his rhetoric more than anything else. Most of all, he twists the recognized variant of the Greek text to lend credence to his thesis. In my view, S.S. Bartchy's recent presentations tender the best hypothesis surrounding the epistle. That is, Paul is urging a honor-encrusted master, Philemon, to embrace his honorless slave. Modern readings of this epistle is needlessly haunted by images of American slavery. Neither should Enlightenment ideas of freedom be imposed on the text. On the contrary,what is crucial to an understanding to the text is an understanding of honor and brotherhoood as practiced among the Greeks and early Christians. I am intrigued by the comments of the previous reviewer who has applauded Dr.Callahan while completely being oblivious to the gist of the book.

Doctor Callahan has done New Testament studies a wonderful service with this thought-provoking, and stimulating exegesis of the largely ignored Epistle to Philemon. Challenging the historical view of Onesimus (from the time of Chrysostom-forward), Callahan brings a depth of historical analysis and greek exegesis that is scarcely found elsewhere. That a noted Harvard theologian could write so succinctly and clearly with such tremendous impact is in itself cause for rejoicing. This commentary will serve the Christian church well, for years to come, in how we view Pauline theology in light of Philemon. According to Callahan,the Epistle to Philemon is more than just a letter about a slave, and we will do well to understand it as such.