DavidsonNews.net

By RACHEL ANDOGA

Article provided by Davidson College news office.
Renowned writer Anthony S. “Tony” Abbott, Dana Professor of English emeritus at Davidson College, will make several appearances in the in the coming weeks to promote his new novel, “The Three Great Secret Things.”

Prof. Abbott will sign copies of the book at Main Street Books in Davidson on Friday, Nov. 30, from 6–8:30 p.m. as a part of the annual Christmas in Davidson festivities. He will read from and sign copies at Park Road Books in the Park Road Shopping Center in Charlotte on Saturday, Dec. 1, at 3 p.m.

He will also appear at a book release party at Davidson Public Library on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. (To register for the library event, please call 704-892-8557.)

Prof. Abbott’s first novel, “Leaving Maggie Hope,” won the 2003 Novello Literary Award. It explored the life of 10-year-old David Lear and his struggle to adjust to boarding school while attempting to overcome his family’s tragic past. “The Three Great Secret Things” continues a now 14-year-old David’s coming-of-age odyssey with his entrance into a Connecticut prep school.

“The title of the book is a phrase of John Updike’s,” Prof. Abbott said. “For Updike, the three great secret things are sex, religion, and art. These were the things about which he was most passionate as an adolescent, but also things that were mysteries. In a sense, this is a book about David’s education through those three great, secret things.”

Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling novelist, praised “The Three Great Secret Things” as “a timeless, classic novel for readers of all ages especially notable for its memorable characters, its authenticity of time and place, and its beautiful, beautiful writing.”

Prof. Abbott harvested David’s journey of self-discovery in part from his own life.

“The book is autobiographical in the sense that the setting and certain events transpired,” he said. “You mix memory and imagination. You take things that might have happened in another context and reuse them in ways that work fictionally.”

Prof. Abbott especially reveled in the creation of central female character Tracy Warren, who, despite the novel’s elements of autobiography, is completely fictional. “I didn’t really have a girlfriend like that!” Abbott laughed.

“Tracy is an extremely complex young woman. David loves her deeply, but doesn’t understand her - but what else is new? Their relationship - and, really, who they are - evolves based on that confusion.”

Prof. Abbott is a San Francisco native who received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard. His began teaching at Davidson in 1964 and retired in 2001.

He still teaches periodically at the college, and will be teaching an interdisciplinary humanities course in the spring. This past spring, Prof. Abbott was writer-in-residence at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, and he occasionally teaches classes in poetry writing at Queens University.

His books of poetry include “The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat,” “A Small Thing Like a Breath,” “The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World,” and “The Man Who.”

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