Review

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities

June 29, 1997

Column: Dave Wood

`First Fall' is poignant, funny look at St. Olaf

Author: Dave Wood; Staff Writer

With 20 years of teaching under my belt I've always been a soft touch when it comes to the academic novel, from the tales of "Old Siwash" through Mary McCarthy's "Groves of Academe" to the more recent Jon Hassler novel, "Dean's List."

I've read so many that I can even get religion-specific, having made my way through novels of Lutheran academe, like Per Stromme's "Halvor" and Art Lee's "Brother Hottanbottan," both about Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Now I've finished a new one by St. Olaf College English professor Steve Swanson. I told him over the phone that it's the best Lutheran academic novel I've ever read - and certainly the raciest.

"That sounds like a Norwegian compliment to me," replied Swanson, the wry author of 25 previous books.

No, no, Prof. Swanson. The First Fall (Nine One Press, 182 pages) can stand with any academic novel, but it will be of special interest to readers acquainted with St. Olaf College traditions and especially its landmark Ytterboe Hall, the 97-year-old men's dorm that's scheduled for demolition this month unless a lawsuit stops the procedure.

Swanson lived at Ytterboe (IT-er-boe) as a kid when his father,

Cully Swanson, was dean of men. Later he bunked there as an Ole student, class of 1954. So he wrote this novel to coincide with the destruction of the old pile, setting it some years before his matriculation, during a fascinating period in the history of American academic life, the post-World War II years.

It's 1946, and returning GIs with loads of worldly experience have flooded the Northfield, Minn., campus. In the thick of it is protagonist Jon Adamson, son of the dean of men and an incoming freshman who hasn't ventured east of Eden or very far from Northfield. Adamson. First Fall. Get it? "In Adamson's fall, we sinned all," a fine opening for a Lutheran hornbook. Adamson learns all about sin in this comic and poignant coming-of-age novel because he draws as his dorm mate one Tony Tarpezi, 27, a Milwaukeean who has been shell-shocked in the North African and Italian campaigns.

Despite Tony's big-city background, his language is "barnyard," as an Augsburg dean called mine years back; he's forever pulling on an inexhaustible brandy flask, and he has a ravenous taste for chasing the blond Norwegian undergrads whom he calls "chicks," which the priggish Adamson considers disrespectful.

And down St. Olaf Av. comes an aspiring actress and St. Olaf Choir wannabe, the beauteous Rhonda Rassmussen, whose grandmother lives in Edina. Adamson is crazy about her, saves her used chewing gum, ogles her from afar, tries to sit next to her in the cafeteria (do they sup on a Diet of Worms?). He finally manages a double date, with Tarpezi and a Wisconsin naif, Holly Hanson. Tarpezi pours sloe gin and Coke into Adamson, who experiences his first abortive sexual experience with Rhonda, then promptly passes out.

In the throes of first love, Adamson is insanely jealous, especially after Rhonda is tapped for choir, which at St. Olaf is right up there next to being seated at the right hand of God the Father. He's even jealous when he sees Rhonda chatting with a senior with a sexy name: Halvor Follensby. And he extracts a promise from Tarpezi that the worldly vet won't try for a piece of Rhonda action.

Yeah, I know you think you know how this menage a trois will work itself out, but read on. You may be surprised.

Swanson does a fine job of evoking this not-too-distant past, a beer party in the caves, crosstown rival Carleton College calling St. Olaf "the college built on a bluff and operated on the same principle," the stuffy upper-lipped St. Olaf administrators, and, of course, THE CHOIR and its lutefisk-scented CHRISTMAS CONCERT.

It's not perfect, of course, probably because of Adam's Fall. There's no way Rhonda and Jon could have danced to the vocal stylings of Julius La Rosa on KDHL of Faribault, Minn., because Arthur Godfrey wouldn't discover the crooner until years later.

And I wish Swanson would have included one of St. Olaf's most delicious legends: Seems that back in the 1920s, the dean of women approached eminent choir director F. Melius Christiansen with news that there were "a few rotten apples" in his choir, boys and girls who smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. "You simply must dismiss them all from the choir!" she concluded. Christiansen thought for a moment and asked, "If I do, what will I take on tour to Norway this summer, a quartet?"

But those are nits. Readers can't help but like this book, upon which its author has lavished such humor, poignancy and affection - on a town, a college and a building.

- Dave Wood is books editor of the Star Tribune.