Biography & Memoir

Mary Previte, superintendent of the Camden County (NJ) Youth Center. Previte, the great granddaughter of missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor, grew up in China with her missionary parents. During World War II, she and her fellow students and teachers spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp. Previte credits the structure her teachers' created with making the horrific experience bearable. For the past twenty years, Previte has run the youth center, a holding center for boys and girls charged with serious crimes.

Writer Mikal Gilmore, youngest brother of executed killer Gary Gilmore. Gilmore's 1977 death --at his own request-- by firing squad in Utah, was the first American execution in ten years. Brother Mikal finds seeds of his brother's two murders sown far back in Gilmore family history, and its Mormon roots.

Civil rights attorney and law professor Jack Greenberg. He was just out of law school--a white Jewish man from the Bronx when he joined the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Greenberg took over the helm of the LDF from his mentor Thurgood Marshall when Marshall was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeals. During Greenberg's tenure there, the LDF litigated some of the watershed cases of the civil rights struggle. He has just published a memoir of his 35 years at the LDF.

Author and physician Abraham Verghese. An Indian raised in Ethopia, Abraham Verghese arrived in the United States in 1980 as a rookie doctor. Upon completing an internship in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese accepted a position in the rural, Appalachian town of Johnson City, Tennessee. The year was 1985 and AIDS had begun to ravage large metropolitan areas. Within the year, Dr. Verghese was treating his first case of AIDS in this rural outpost.

Writer and teacher Reynolds Price A native of North Carolina, Price has written works known for their sense of place and off-beat characters. He's a prolific and a varied writer: he 's written short stories, poems, plays, and essays, and since the publication of his first novel, "A Long and Happy Life," in 1962, he's published more than two dozen books. In 1984 Price was diagnosed with spinal cancer, and became paralyzed from the waist down. Cancer, though, didn't slow his writing down.

Author Melba Beals. Forty years ago today the United States Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in "Brown v. Board of Education." Three years later, Beals and eight other black teenagers chose to attend the all white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the process Beals suffered a school year marked by unremitting violence and hatred. Danny, the soldier assigned to protect her, warned her that she too would have to become a soldier.

Author Michael Dorris. His work is wide-ranging in topic and emotional impact. In his earlier book "The Broken Cord" he wrote of his struggle to understand the severe health and behavior problems of an adopted son, Abel, who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Abel, a Native American, died in an accident after a difficult life. Dorris himself is part Modoc Indian. He founded the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth College where he now teaches Anthropology.

Author Robb Forman Dew. In her novels--"Dale Loves Sophie to Death" (Harper Perennial) and "Fortunate Lives" (Harper Perennial)--Dew explored the ambiguities and intricacies of families. So she thought she understood the complexities of family love. But then her son informed her he was gay. Dew has written a new memoir about her son's coming out and the family evolution that followed. It's her non-fiction debut and it's called "The Family Heart" (Addison-Wesley).

Peru's eminent novelist and former presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa. Llosa is the author of many books including "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," (which was made into a movie, based on his own relationship with his 32-year old aunt, who he married at the age of 19), "The Storyteller," and "In Praise of the Stepmother." A London Times writer says of Llosa's novels that they are "among the finest coming out of Latin America." Llosa lived for many years in Europe.

Former Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello. At the age of 12, she was discovered by Walt Disney at a dance recital; he was looking for kids for his new show, "The Mickey Mouse Club." Funicello became the "most popular" Mouseketeer, and went on to star in a number of Disney films: "The Shaggy Dog," "Babes in Toyland," and "The Monkey's Uncle." Before she went to star in the beach party movies for which she is also known, Disney requested that she wear a one-piece bathing suit instead of a bikini. Funicello agreed.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Bengal Nights," and "It Does Not Die," two autobiographical novels about the same romantic affair. They've just been republished. "Bengal Nights" is by Mircea Eliade, "It Does Not Die," is by Maitreyi Devi. (Both University of Chicago Press).

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes" by Janet Malcolm (Knopf). The book is a reflection on the various attempts by biographers to chronicle the life of the late poet Sylvia Plath.

Film director Milos Forman. Originally from Czechoslovakia, Forman is the director of such American films as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Amadeus," "Hair," and "Ragtime." Forman began his film career in his native country, apprenticing with some of the country's best film makers for the Communist state-controlled film industry.

Colombian journalist Maria Jimena Duzan helped expose the connection between Colombia's drug traffickers and the nation's military in 1988. Duzan and her paper, El Espectador, were the targets of death threats and attacks. By 1990 all of the members of the paper's former investigative unit were either dead or in exile. Duzan went into exile, but her sister, a documentary film maker, was murdered. Duzan returned to Columbia in 1992. She has a new book, "Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars." (HarperCollins)

Commentator Maureen Corrigan has a review of a new biography of a turn of the century journalist: "Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist." (Times Books).

Parish Priest John McNamee. For twenty five years he's lived and worked the poorer neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His book, "Diary of a City Priest" (Sheed & Ward) documents his struggle to keep faith, when surrounded by poverty and despair.

Teresa "Terry" Phelps. Author, law professor and wife of Digger Phelps, former head basketball coach at Notre Dame. Terry Phelps has written a memoir called "The Coach's Wife" (Norton). In 1991, Digger Phelps left Notre Dame and not one Notre Dame official attended his farewell address. Terry Phelps says her husband was the victim of the clashing demands placed on college coaches--be an educator, but be a money maker and entertainer too. She writes about her role as the "lovely wife," as coach's wives are often called in the world of college sports.

Lionel Dahmer is the father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who committed some of the most ghastly crimes imaginable. Lionel has written a new memoir about his life with his son, "A Father's Story." (William Morrow), in which he tries to understand what happened to his son, and how he could turn into such a monster.

Author and former field engineer, editor, actor, migrant farm worker, farmer, trapper, truck driver and sailor Gary Paulsen. Paulsen has authored books for adults, young adults and children. His latest book for adult readers is "Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod" (Harcourt Brace and Company). The Iditarod has been called "the last great race on earth." It is the grueling 1,180 mile dogsled race over the Arctic terrain from Anchorage to Nome. Paulsen ran it twice. During training for the race, Paulsen almost lost his dogs and his own life.

Zlata Filipovic is a thirteen year-old Sarajevan, whose diaries of the war in Bosnia have been published this month as "Zlata's Diary" (Viking). The book begins in August of 1991, with a new school year --fifth grade-- and the trappings of girlhood: piano lessons and tennis. By that spring, Sarajevo was under siege and Zlata's schoolmates were being killed, her family hiding in the basement and abandoned purebred dogs wandered the streets.