Lev
Raphael is the author of twenty-six books in a dozen different genres. His work
has been translated into fifteen languages. He teaches writing workshops at writewithoutborders.com.
Today Lev joins us to discuss the real-life events that inspired him to write
his most recent mystery. Learn more about Lev at his website and blog.
Teaching at a Toxic
University
Back in 2011, the chair of the English Department at Michigan
State University emailed to ask if I’d consider teaching there. His email was
serendipitous. Less than a week before, I’d returned from a book tour in
Germany where some of my venues were classrooms and I came home missing the
interaction with students I’d had years ago before leaving academia to write
full time.
As the chair pointed out when we met for coffee, I had published
more books than the entire creative writing faculty put together, so he thought
the match was ideal. I was happy to return to the classroom, and not only
taught fiction and creative nonfiction, but literature courses packed with
books I loved. Better still, I worked independently with talented writing
students doing a senior thesis and got to pass on the kind of mentoring I
received in college.
My office mate, a recent Ph.D., was friendly and hardworking,
and chatting with her about books and pedagogy was always rewarding. Then one
day, she walked in looking very upset and when I asked what was wrong, she told
me about a frightening incident that had just happened. Her ex-boyfriend had
burst into her apartment, knocking the door off its hinges, and roughed up her current
boyfriend while she was locked in the bathroom calling 911. Apparently her ex-
had been stalking her up to this point.
Not long afterwards, one of my best writing students FB messaged
me that she was being stalked. I made sure she was safe and urged her to call
the campus police. As she told me more about what was going on, it turned out the
guy was a graduate student instructor who had taught one of her classes and
sounded very much like the man who'd attacked my officemate's friend. A few
questions later, it was clear this was the same person, and I put her in touch
with my officemate for support.
I wasn't thinking of fiction then, I was worried about her
safety, the safety of my officemate, and even my own. What if the stalker came
to the office we shared looking for her and attacked me, too, for whatever
reason? He sounded violent and unstable—anything was possible. I got a
description so that I could be on guard, though to be honest, defending myself
in a tiny office the size of a walk-in closet would have been close to
impossible.
And then I watched over many months as both women were badly
treated by the MSU office tasked to handle assaults, and let down by the legal
system as well. My officemate eventually gave up academia, and my student left
MSU in senior year before getting her degree because she didn't feel safe there
anymore. Personal Protection Orders don’t mean much if someone is willing to
violate them, or is stalking you via social media.
Shock doesn't begin to describe what I felt as their cases
started being reported on in print and on air. They seemed more terrible with wider dissemination.
And their stories sadly aligned with what I read about other campuses in the
U.S. where people who should have helped were not responding swiftly or
humanely in similar situations. A larger question that emerged was a depressing
portrait of arrogant or out-of-touch administrators at all levels, who either
ignored what was going on or responded inadequately.
That kind of malfeasance and mendacity fuel the plot of my 26th
book State University of Murder. It
fields the same sleuth as in eight previous mysteries, English professor Nick
Hoffman, but involves him more deeply than ever before with administrators who care
more about their own position than the needs of the students and faculty they’re
supposed to serve. I drew on stories people at other universities had told me and
on newspaper reports from across the country.
State University of Murder isn’t a transcription of actual events,
but it’s certainly inspired by them, and so is the character I created who’s
coping with sexual assault. She’s a tenured professor, because anyone is
vulnerable to exploitation, harassment, mistreatment--and worse. It’s all about
power, and power plays out in unique but identifiable ways on college campuses in
every state.
Michigan State University has made the news recently for much more
stunning tales of abuse and what feels like corruption, but the two stories I heard
from the victims needed to be honored just the same. I was already disillusioned
by how I saw people treated at MSU, and what happened to my officemate and my student
made the idea of continuing to teach there less and less tenable. Setting up my
own website has been the perfect antidote.
State
University of Murder
A Nick
Hoffman Mystery
Still reeling from having escaped a mass shooting on
campus, English professor Nick Hoffman finds himself on the receiving end of
confessions by one colleague after another. All of them have good reason to
hate the new department chair, Dr. Napoleon Padovani, who throws his weight
around capriciously and cruelly. Resentment mounts on campus -- with an
inevitably fatal result. Chaos and confusion reign among the faculty, which
then turns on its own. Can Nick and his spouse Stefan restore order and save
the day? Raphael has described the university as "a unique combination of
the vanity of professional sports, the hypocrisy of politics, the cruelty of
big business, with a touch of organized crime thrown in."
2 comments:
Lev . . . It seems like some things never change. Your tale of violence and fear could have been written by either one of us thirty years ago and only the names would be different. Living in fear, always vigilant, is no way to live.
Knowing those two women as well as I did made the nightmare so much more immediate. Both wisely left MSU. Their stories can likely be echoed across the US.
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