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Larry Berkove in his study

'Endless Sabbatical'

Retired academic keeps busy
with researching and writing.

Barbara Lewis
Contributing
Writer
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42

August 20 • 2015

JN

or most people, retirement

means an opportunity to
relax, to travel, to get involved
with volunteer work or hobbies.
For Larry Berkove, 85, retirement
has meant, in his wife Gail's words, an
"endless sabbatical:'
Berkove taught English at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn for
24 years. Since leaving in 2003, he has
authored, edited or co-edited nine
books; published nine book chap-
ters, 10 journal articles, 13 published
notes (short articles) and three book
reviews; and given 16 scholarly presen-
tations. Fifteen of his 48 academic dis-
tinctions and honors have come since
he stopped teaching.
Growing up in Chicago, Berkove
intended to study forestry. One year
at Montana State convinced him to go
in another direction, as did a year of
pre-med studies. He finally earned a
bachelor's degree in English from the
University of Illinois, then went on
to a master's from the University of
Minnesota and a doctorate from the
University of Pennsylvania.
After faculty positions at a num-
ber of colleges, including Colorado
College, DePaul University and
Skidmore College, he landed at the
U-M-Dearborn in 1964, and spent the
rest of his career there.
His academic specialty is 19th- and
early 20th-century American litera-
ture, especially the works of Ambrose
Bierce (the subject of his dissertation),
Mark Twain and Jack London.
"When I retired, I figured I had no
distractions to keep me from doing
what I enjoyed, so I put my ener-
gies into research and writing:' said
Berkove, who works from a cluttered
study in the converted garage of his
Southfield home. The walls are lined

with shelves filled with books; stacks
of papers dot every other horizontal
surface.
In retirement, Berkove became
interested in the "Sagebrush School" of
writers, who lived and worked in east-
ern California and Nevada from the
1850s into the 20th century, and redis-
covered a writer named Dan DeQuille.
In 1885, DeQuille had written
The Big Bonanza, a book about the
Comstock mines in Nevada, the richest
deposit of gold and silver in the world,
Berkove said.
DeQuille wrote at the urging of the
leading financiers of the day, who
wanted to promote the Comstock
mines, so he painted a rather rosy
picture.
But DeQuille also wrote numer-
ous newspaper and magazine articles
that took a more honest look at that
time and place: the dangerous work
of mining; the violence and crime
in Virginia City, Nev., which was the
center of the Comstock enterprise; and
the white settlers' treatment of Native
Americans.
In his latest book, published in
July, Before The Big Bonanza: Dan

DeQuille's Newspaper Accounts of the
Comstock, 1860-1863, Berkove and co-
author Donnelyn Curtis present and
comment on 49 of these articles.
"I feel privileged to be able to take
the lead on research like this:' Berkove
said. "I've never felt the 'publish or
perish' pressure to write. I just wrote
about stuff that I was sincerely inter-
ested in."
The only hobby Berkove will admit
to is reading for pleasure; he particu-
larly likes the work of English novelist
A.S. Byatt.
Aside from that, he'll just keep on
researching and writing.
"I've always loved the study of
American literature," he said. "If I
weren't paid to do it, rd pay to do it:' ❑

