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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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092589
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09258900.044
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1990-09-17
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BOOKS, Page 82American Pie
EXIT THE RAINMAKER
by Jonathan Coleman
Atheneum; 401 pages; $18.95
The strength and weakness of this striking work is that it
reads like a crime novel. But its protagonist, Jay Carsey, at age
47 really was president of Charles County Community College in
Maryland. And on May 19, 1982, days before commencement, he really
did withdraw $28,000 from the bank, drive to the airport, mail
several letters, down some vodkas and board a flight. One of the
letters was a brief note of resignation. One was a short statement
to his wife that he was leaving because he was a "physical and
psychological disaster." A postcard, to a close friend who was the
college dean, read "Exit the Rainmaker. Good luck. Pls handle."
Handle what? The mess? Carsey didn't say.
People disappear all the time, but Carsey was unusual, one of
those boyish, likable men that Americans like to elect to public
office. He had built his college up from almost nothing, his wife
was beautiful, and the two (who had no children) were tirelessly
social. People depended on "Uncle Jay."
Was there any substance to this life? Was Carsey a kind of
scapegrace hero for clearing out? Good, portentous questions,
explored by his former friends. The answers may not quite measure
up, and the author uses the novelistic device of the omniscient
narrator, leaving the reader uncertain of how evidence was tracked
down. But when Carsey turns up tending bar more or less happily in
the Southwest, it seems that his problems may have been nothing
much more than an empty marriage and heavy drinking. He spoke
eloquently by his action, and has little more to say.