Silence and My First Book

Doctor!

My first book wasn’t Science Fiction or Fantasy.  It was my doctoral dissertation: The Persephone Myth in D.H. Lawrence.  I’ve been told it’s pretty readable, even for a non-expert, which is nice.  What’s the good of a book no one can read?

I don’t talk about my Ph.D. very often these days.  For one, I earned it over half a lifetime ago.  I defended my doctoral dissertation on my 26th birthday.  I could have defended it earlier, but the English department at Fordham University couldn’t assemble a committee to read the document and gather for the required defense until the Fall term, so I had to wait.

Another reason I rarely talk about my Ph.D. is that I rapidly discovered that people became uncomfortable when they learned I had a doctorate in English.  They’d apologize for the grammar in their letters or even in conversation.  Oddly enough, I’ve rarely encountered this reaction when people learn I’m a writer.  I guess writers aren’t supposed to know anything about language.

I’ve even been “silenced,” most memorably by a well-meaning, well-educated, female author who let me know that a person in publishing with whom I was going to be working was very self-conscious about his own lack of education, and so I probably shouldn’t mention mine.

As I recall the conversation, she said, “It’s not that you brag or anything.  You just mention your graduate work and that you taught college from time to time, because it’s part of your life.  But I thought you should know that…”

Keep quiet.  Women shouldn’t make other people—especially male people—nervous.  The message is given over and over, usually in ways far more subtle than this.

The lack of use of the title “doctor” for other than medical professionals also reflects how the U.S. doesn’t really value higher education.  The silencing is general, usually applied to male and female alike.  Even the addressing of medical doctors as “doctor” is more an identification of a skill set than the honor it should be.  “Is there a doctor in the house?” means “Is there a body technician available who might fix this problem?”

I have friends who brag about how their colleges were informal, how they never addressed a professor as “Professor” or “Doctor.”  I think this is a pity.  Those people earned those titles.  This is the one setting in which our culture permits that to be acknowledged.  Yet people who themselves were striving toward a degree devalued their own goal by their lack of acknowledgement.

Do I give people their titles?  You bet.  Years ago, Jim and I spent a lot of time with a talented and very kind veterinarian who made herself available to help us with a severely handicapped baby guinea pig.  She is quite a bit younger than we are and, at one point, she suggested we use her first name.

I looked at her and said, “You worked hard for that title.  How about we call you by your first name and ‘doctor’?” And so we do.

Anyhow, there’s the story behind my first book…  And of one of my achievements, about which I remain, to this day, very proud.