Dean's List

Rookery State College #2

by Jon Hassler

Leland Edwards, a piano-playing fisherman and English professor, has become dean of Rookery State College in Minnesota. With this title comes the daunting task of saving his beloved campus from diminished enrollment, hockey thuggery, and its ignoble associations with Paul Bunyan. So when the most famous poet in America agrees to come to Rookery, Leland hopes that his reading will put Rookery State on the literary map.

But when he arrives, the poet is more and less than what Leland expected--and their relationship leads Leland on a wild ride that will compel him to harbor a fugitive, stand up to his domineering mother, and finally make peace with his brief attempt at love and the tragedy that ensued. . . .

Genres: Fiction, Education, Novels, Contemporary, Book Club, Academia

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jon Hassler was born in Minneapolis, but spent his formative years in the small Minnesota towns of Staples and Plainview, where he graduated from high school. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from St. John's University in 1955. While teaching English at three different Minnesota high schools, he received his Master of Arts degree in English from the University of North Dakota in 1960. He continued to teach at the high school level until 1965, when he began his collegiate teaching career: first at Bemidji State University, then Brainerd Community College (now called Central Lakes College), and finally at Saint John's, where he became the Writer-in-Residence in 1980.

During his high-school teaching years, Hassler married and fathered three children. His first marriage lasted 25 years. He had two more marriages; the last was to Gretchen Kresl Hassler.

In 1994, Hassler was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a disease similar to Parkinson's. It caused vision and speech problems, as well as difficulty walking, but he was able to continue writing. He was reported to have finished a novel just days before his death. Hassler died in 2008, at the age of 74, at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.[1]

The Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview, Minnesota, is named for him.

Reviews

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hassler is one of my favorite regional authors. This one is humorous at times, had touchy-feeling moments, and great writing. Leland Edwards has become dean of Rookery State College. His tasks are to increase enrollment, deal with hockey issues, and associations with Paul Bunyan. Somehow he manages to lure the most popular poet in America to his campus. What happens next leads to an exciting story finding Edwards harboring a fugitive, standing up to his domineering mother and finding within himself a way to cope with a brief attempt at love and the tragedy that followed. Good read!

[Sheila Cronin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Insightful portrayal of life on a small campus, academic conflicts, creative pressures and life with Mother seen through the eyes of a dutiful son in his sixties. Hassler delivers poignancy with humor but never strays from irony for long. Always a pleasure to delve into one of his novels.

[Mike Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Jon Hassler is like coming home. Lovingly drawn characters and wonderful humor in the land where ice forms on your fishing line before the first northern pike even bites.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to give it a 2.5, but alas GR doesn’t allow that level of distinction

[Randall J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very frustrating book. The main character, Leland Edwards, is likable enough, but is also a milquetoast surrounded by a series of highly-unpleasant characters. His refusal to stand up for himself grows tiresome after a while. The last portion of the book feels tacked on and hastily written. Continuity is overlooked (as it would frequently be in Hassler's later novels). At various times, the book is set 22, 24 and 25 years after the events of Rookery Blues, yet takes place over a six month period. Not Hassler's best work.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an enjoyable book! Sometimes sad & poignant, often laugh out loud funny. Jon Hassler's characters are unforgettable, & his observations on the life of an academic carry the authenticity of one who has lived it. Hassler deserves a much wider audience.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Especially loved this one about college life in a small town, having gone to college in a small MN town. Recommended! Love the subtle humor.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minn small college dean and his life with his former wife, his mother, and the various people of the school. His life changes when a famous poet comes to town.

[Bernadette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved my visit to northern Minnesota's fictional Rookery State College sharing the hilarious academic antics in the office of Dean Leland Edwards. A piano-playing fisherman, poetry-loving English professor, Dean Edwards, early 60s, still has much to learn about dealing with the women in his life. They include his ailing mother (a beloved local radio talk host), ex-wife who runs the Senior Hi Rise facility, a female student stalker who accuses Edwards of sexual harassment, his outlandish, vocal secretary and a potential new love who is nearing academic burnout. Adding to the dean's challenges are the clueless college president, hockey coach and athletic director gone wild on a spending spree with a new hockey arena, and the challenge of bringing a big-name entertainer to campus to raise funds for the endowment. Dean Edwards' juggling of these often diametrically opposing forces makes for a sometimes laugh-out-loud read and an often genteel literary work that produces profound observations about human nature and relationships. Jon Hassler was a gem of a writer capturing the remote, declining 1990s campus with warmth and charm. I especially enjoyed the poems at the end of the novel that were supposedly the work of America's foremost poet whom Dean Edwards managed to lure to Rookery State for a reading to inaugurate the new hockey arena. Hassler's talent for poetry shines as does his sense of self-deprecating humor! So sad that he has passed away.

[Jennifer Barstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story about the life of a college dean during one school year.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually like Hassler. This wasnt a bad book, but it just seemed to drag along. I was a third of the way thru when I quit. Still felt like I didnt really know what the story was about.

[Norrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hassler tells a story well. Enjoyed the characters and the tale of Rookery State.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bore for me

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been difficult to find time to read while working on this play, so it was a stop and start affair, and maybe that is why I didn’t enjoy this as much as Hassler’s others. . Leland isn’t quite so quirky as he was in ‘Rookery Blues’. Of all the characters in ‘Rookery Blues’ that Hassler could have followed I suppose Leland is the natural choice as the one still in Rookery but I think it would have been better to have picked up the story earlier, before his marriage to Sally, rather than dealing with that period of his life in flashback. Overall I’d say this book was sort of flat emotionally – perhaps because Leland controls his feelings. Lolly’s antics are restrained because she’ so ill. The other fringe characters are also more tame than expected. The motion of the story – it’s direction is a bit aimless – not that there aren’t some fine scenes. The whole story just stays flat, not dull, it just doesn’t require an emotional investment in the characters, and the end is much too ordinary than I’ve come to expect from Hassler. It has been difficult to find time to read while working on this play, so it was a stop and start affair, and maybe that is why I didn’t enjoy this as much as Hassler’s others. . Leland isn’t quite so quirky as he was in ‘Rookery Blues’. Of all the characters in ‘Rookery Blues’ that Hassler could have followed I suppose Leland is the natural choice as the one still in Rookery but I think it would have been better to have picked up the story earlier, before his marriage to Sally, rather than dealing with that period of his life in flashback. Overall I’d say this book was sort of flat emotionally – perhaps because Leland controls his feelings. Lolly’s antics are restrained because she’ so ill. The other fringe characters are also more tame than expected. The motion of the story – it’s direction is a bit aimless – not that there aren’t some fine scenes. The whole story just stays flat, not dull, it just doesn’t require an emotional investment in the characters, and the end is much too ordinary than I’ve come to expect from Hassler.

[Joe Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is a portrait of the citizens of a small college town from the perspective of a narrator who is tied closely to his mother's hip. I think the author is a wonderful writer who has the skill to successfully write about ordinary lives, even the mundane, in an absorbing, entertaining story. How the characters react to each other and their dialogue gives this story its momentum. I think readers over a certain age, say 50, will find the settings and dialogue relatable. When I was reading the dialogue of the family gathering, I could laugh and say to myself, yes, I remember family gatherings just like that; he's got my uncle, my aunt in this story. When Hassler writes about the senior living complex, yes, I've been there, it's just the way it is. We live inside the forest seeing just the trees and Hassler lets us see the whole forest. There is humor - a chuckling kind - in this story along with all the quirks and foibles that make us and make his characters human. This is a delightful, at times touching, and overall, uplifting story.

[Dina Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that tell the story of a community and the various relationships and interactions within the community. Is there a name for that genre? I'm not sure.

I decided though that the book reminds me of a Stephen King book, minus the horror and supernatural. Imagine Pet Semetary without the magical evil burial ground; or It without Pennywise the Clown.

The book is told through the eyes of a college dean. The main plot is about him wanting a poet to visit the school. Various subjects dealt with in the book: false accusations of sexual harassment, men town between their wives and their mothers, death, illness, fugitives, grief, blame...and other things.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my. I just checked other readers' ratings and found mine well short of the average. Loaned to me by a friend, I *tried* to give it a fair read, but couldn't get past page 121. Pendantic, overly mundane, although obviously filled with authenticity for the academic setting (which I know as well, perhaps too well). I'm still willing to give Rookery Blues a try, which my friend confesses is a better book. Guess there's no pleasing everyone! :0

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This read started out to be an entertaining look at the academic life written from the point of view of a Dean of a small college in northern Minnesota who has never been able to get out of his mother's orbit. It turned into a plodding experience, but for some reason I felt compelled to finish it.I think the good sense of place the novel has had something to do with that.

[Alden · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.bookpage.com/9707bp/fictio...

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Jon Hassler.... very good book.

[Carol]

Never read it.

[Dina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written. I felt he jumped at the end of the book as if a chapter were left out. Odd.

[Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Hassler's writing. Wish he hadn't died.

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finished - lost interest.