http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/24/BAFH1F23Q6.DTL
Kevin Fagan
August 25, 2010
Hippie, novelist, educator, one-liner funnyman with a conscience -
Gerald "Jerry" Rosen was many things, and he lived them all with a rare vigor.
Even as he fought a decadelong battle with leukemia, he managed to
bang out his long-anticipated 540-page autobiography, "Cold Eye, Warm
Heart," doing promotional tours after it came out last year and
enjoying every minute, friends and family said.
When he died on Aug. 13 at 71 in a hospital near his San Francisco
home, he was at peace, they said. That was perfect, considering peace
of all kinds was something he'd always striven for in the
intellectual and spiritual journey he called his life.
"In his final months, Jerry was very calm," said longtime friend
Barry Gifford. "Tibetan Buddhists say if you are calm as the end
approaches, you go to a better place than if you are kicking up a
fuss. I think Jerry went to the right place."
Gerald Rosen was born in the Bronx to Eve Rosenberg and Sol Rosen,
who ran a liquor store on the edge of Harlem. He often said, with a
laugh, that he did not come from educated people and that the only
professional person he knew as a kid was his uncle Lenny, who lived
upstairs and led a gang of armed robbers.
College and Army
After earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1960 and an MBA from the Wharton
School of Business in 1962, he was drafted into the Army, where he
commanded a medic company. Mustering out as a captain three years
later, Mr. Rosen set about earning a doctorate in American history
and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving it in 1969.
In 1972, Mr. Rosen published his first novel, "Blues for a Dying
Nation." The novel, inspired by the anti-war movement, examined
counterculture and traditional life of the 1960s through the eyes of
a hippie in the Army. A New York Times review called it " 'Catch 22'
with all the stops pulled out ... an honorable attempt at the great
American novel."
Adventures with LSD and study of Eastern philosophy led Mr. Rosen to
deeper inner explorations, and he soon found himself moving west with
his first wife, Charlotte. They moved into a tiny house in Cotati,
and in 1973 he got hired as an English professor at Sonoma State
University. He also kept writing, and with each new book his reputation grew.
Views and one-liners
"Carmen Miranda Memorial Flagpole," his novel about two brothers
traveling from the East Coast to California, came out in 1977, and
"Growing Up Bronx," an exploration of the American dream in a
tumultuous society, was published in 1984. He wrote seven books in
all, and a hallmark of his craft became not just his pointed
observations of American hypocrisy, promise and challenge, but his
comedic one-liners in both prose and public appearances.
Among them was this, quoted by Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik at a
book reading in December: "In the '60s, an entire generation went
crazy, wouldn't listen to reason, turned to violence and almost
wrecked our nation. That was the adults."
Author and literary critic Jerome Klinkowitz called Mr. Rosen's final
book, his 2009 autobiography, "the best book about the American
cultural transformation of the last half of the twentieth century
that has ever been written."
Mr. Rosen retired from Sonoma State in 1998 after having helped run
the creative writing program for most of his time there and inspiring
generations of writers.
"He had a lot of black humor, and he loved telling jokes," said his
wife, Marijke Rosen, whom he married after his first marriage ended
in the mid-1970s. "He said it was a way of coping with some pretty
painful stuff, like the war in Vietnam. ... He tried to ask the
questions that are so often not asked."
Besides his wife, Mr. Rosen is survived by his son, Jesse Saunt of
Rock Creek, Ohio. A public memorial is pending.
--
E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment