University Boulevard

by Alan Berch Hollingsworth

The sequel to Hollingsworth's acclaimed novel Flatbellies follows the four high school golfers to college in 1967, where they join a fraternity and cope with Vietnam and other revolutionary issues, both internal and external. WW Norton has purchased rights to the softcover version.

389 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Alan B. Hollingsworth is also known as John Albedo.

Alan B. Hollingsworth is a breast cancer specialist, focusing on early detection through aggressive screening in high-risk individuals. This includes the epidemiology and pathology behind screening, as well as risk assessment, genetic testing, and multi-modality imaging.

He founded Oklahoma's first multidisciplinary breast cancer program, then spent 20 years as medical director of Mercy Breast Center in OKC. Retired from patient care, he still serves as a consultant to biotech companies that are working on a screening blood test to detect early breast cancer.

His first novel, FLATBELLIES, was unrelated to medicine, intended as coming-of-age mainstream fiction, though often promoted as sports fiction. Read widely among golf enthusiasts, the book was named by a panel of East Coast sportswriters as "One of the Top Ten Golf Books of All Time," published in the Washington Times. However, readership went well beyond golfers, and a USA Today review brought enough attention that the book has been in continuous option for film since its initial release in 2001. UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD was requested by the publisher as a sequel, given the success of Flatbellies. University Boulevard was a finalist in Oklahoma's Centennial Celebration contest for authors, "Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma."

Dr. Alan Berch Hollingsworth then published KILLING ALBERT BERCH, a true crime and historical memoir that deals with the 1923 murder of his maternal grandfather by an angry mob, fueled by Klan outrage that Albert Berch had hired a black porter to work and live in Berch's hotel in an all-white sundown town.

Writing under the pseudonym "John Albedo" Dr. Hollingsworth spent 20 years writing the BRAINBOW CHRONICLES, a trilogy of upmarket commercial fiction (addressing cognitive plasticity of the brain), with all 3 books winning awards in the genre of literary fiction. The first book of the trilogy, NUTSHELL, also won a Distinguished Favorite designation in the General Fiction category in the New York City Big Book Awards 2022.

Next on the docket is the publication of his first novel -- PROGNOSIS: GUARDED -- written in 1977, but never making it to print until 2024. Along with the novel itself, the opening segment of the book is a non-fiction account as to how his blockbuster novel of 1977 was locked and loaded until an identical book became a mega-hit, introducing the genre "medical thriller."

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect story for me. I lived this saga at the same time at the University of Kansas while being a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Every personality and event that was portrayed in the book was somewhat lived also through my own experiences. I was a golfer that made it to state and was musical like the main character. He was in premed and I was in pharmacy. A great story taking me down memory lane. Oh yes, he also dated his high school sweetheart through college and they got married.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings with this book...sometimes I was laughing out loud, and sometimes I was uninterested. Sometimes I was crying and sometimes I was frustrated. But, the last scene, in Holmberg Hall, on the campus of OU, redeemed everything. Every theme Hollingsworth had been quietly developing, even the ones I wasn't interested in, came togehter to remind me what a life-changing experience it is to go to college and throw yourself into that world. Chipper and his friends are only a couple of years younger than I am, so seeing their experience at OU was a fun contrast to my life at Indiana University. They all pledged sororities and fraternities. That was beyond my means, and the slow demise of the Greek system hit my campus earlier.

But the center here is Chipper, too earnest,too eager to 'get ahead' in the system; confused about his true path in life. I can see Hollingsworth having so many of the same doubts as Chipper does -- medicine or writing? Hollingsworth managed to have both; Chipper chose...

Lots of characters here to keep up with, and I'm not sure I did a good job...I focused my energy on Chipper and his wise girlfriend, Amy, Drywalll and Cassie -- both new and both endearing, and Peachy, who is just Peachy. Along the way, I relived the late 60's in all their pain and glory and confusion and angst.

This book is for a bit more mature audience than Flatbellies, because the guys have grown up. Ultimately, I think, I found it MORE satisfying...and that surprises me.

[Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, let's get the unpleasantries out of the way: During the turbulent late Sixties and early Seventies, when, as the author himself says, our society existed in "a world gone mad," UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD only skims the top of what it was like to be in college in those heady days. Dorm life, going to class, cramming, curmudgeonly professors--seduction into the counterculture. . .all of these are but glossed over. A. B. Hollingsworth's second novel is firmly entrenched in the hallowed halls of Sigma Zeta fraternity; UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD is Greek, all Greek, and nothing but Greek.

But that doesn't stop this sequel to the fantastic "Flatbellies" from being fantastic itself; Hollingsworth continues the story of Chipper, Amy, Peachy, and Smokey Ray Divine (known affectionately as "Moguru" by his frat brothers) as they pursue higher education at an anonymous university. Like its predecessor, this book is hysterically funny--from getting even with an abusive upperclassman to Chipper's one (and only) acid trip. The author has a knack for setting up a scene, then delivering his zinger; this read is pure comedic bliss.

Set in such turbulent times, this story, however, is much, much more than comedy. UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD has an undercurrent of angst and pain, of uncertainty and confusion, as its characters cope with monumental cultural shifts. And this component is delivered powerfully. Hollingsworth very much reminds me of Jonathan Tropper; both authors can literally have you laughing, then wiping away a tear. . .all while reading a single page. And that, in the scope of effective writing, is as good as it gets.

UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD is delightful, insightful, compelling, and poignant. I especially liked the way Hollingsworth is able to come full circle with his characters--from freshmen to seniors--as he wraps up his story. And hey: With Sig Zeta pledge nicknames like Drywall, Uno, Peatmoss, Twobits, Kong, and Einstink, how can such a story possibly go wrong?

[Anne Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you were in college in the midwest in the 60s and were in a sorority or fraternity, then this book will ring true on several accounts for you. If I hadn't had that experience to fall back on, I don't know if I would have finished the book. It ran hot and cold for me - chapters full of great prose and storyline and then chapters with snippets of stories hopping around from character to character.

Decent trip down memory lane but that's about it.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad book but after the guy's first years of college the story kind of drags on.

[Candis E. Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like his work I plan on getting everything he wrote.