UVA Club of Phoenix: March Book Club

All alumni, friends, and families are invited to join the UVA Club of Phoenix on Saturday, March 5th for our March Book Club! We'll discuss "Fishbein, Ascending" by Mike Widener (CLAS '72). We have the exciting opportunity to have the author of the novel lead us in our book club discussion!

Location:

The Farm at South Mountain, 6106 S 32nd St, Phoenix, AZ 85042, (just south of Southern on the west side of 32nd Street)

About the Book:

"Fishbein, Ascending injects a paranormal twist into a coming-of-age tale told by two boys describing their friendship and mutual growth. This novel begins outside Rome, Italy in 2001, cutting quickly to a tiny town (Peck, an enclave south of Wichita) during 1968-71. The “abnormal” element requires reader untangling what’s historical and scientific from what’s surreal. Matt Fishbein, boy scientist, discovers at 13 that he can float – is he delusional? Is his closest chum, Chago Díaz, a Cuban refugee recently arrived in Peck, as he describes himself? (Chago asserts his out of body experiences during REM sleep states allow his participating in his dreams and later recording their details. Is that possible?)

While readers probe porous boundaries between science, spirituality, and magic, they accompany these characters on adventures including: (1) Matt’s maiden voyage aloft from Peck to a professional baseball game in Wichita, a warmup for (2) Matt’s soaring journey to Houston’s Mission Control and his NASA encounters during the Apollo 11 lunar mission. These trials are followed by (3) Matt’s arrest in Texas for driving someone else’s rental auto, (4) Matt’s romantic encounter during his college astronomy internship at the Papal Observatory in Lazio, and (5) journalist Chago’s self-imprisonment (isolating from Fidel Castro’s henchmen) in southeastern Cuba, eluding authorities via (6) a rescue concocted and executed by Matt, aided by a French yachtsman who’s Matt’s elderly aunt’s lover.

Growing up, youth possess an embellished and essentially authentic sense of self. In “maturing,” the embellished self loses ground as one’s truer self is refined by adversities. Fishbein, Ascending surrealistically explores the adolescent’s move towards self-recognition and acceptance. Its protagonists’ surreal talents metaphorically vault them from teenage angst to self-knowledge, transitioning towards emotional stability. The boys’ journeys give the thoughtful reader glimpses into her own passage towards stubborn reality, exploring crucial tools of growth like gratitude, friendship, place attachment, and risk-taking. The reader wrestles with deciding for herself, during the plot challenged to sort out what she knows from what she thinks she knows." - Book description provided by the author

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Fishbein, Ascending is available for purchase online at widenerites.com, at the Changing Hands Bookstores on South McClintock Drive in Tempe, and at the Newton on West Camelback Road, Phoenix.

Mike Widener is a retired attorney, educator, and government official. He has published two non-fiction books and a number of legal and ethics journal pieces, articles available through widenerites.com. Mike graduated from the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1972, and lives in Arizona and Tennessee. He last visited Charlottesville in October 2021 and will confirm Kardinal Hall’s patio remains a delightful venue.

For more information, please contact Susan Grehan (CLAS '87, PAR '19, '21) at smgrehan@gmail.com.

This event will follow all pandemic-related health and safety regulations set in place by The Farm at South Mountain, the city of Phoenix, and the state of Arizona as of Saturday, March 5th. Please consult their respective websites for more information. Registrants will be notified of any changes to the event’s status via email from UVA Clubs and/or a phone call from the organizers.

This event is #open to all alumni, friends, and families. #BookClub