Word: reardon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Chik allegedly convinced Liao to give him money to the Harvard Club of Hong Kong Foundation, which would then pass the money along to the University, according to John P. Reardon Jr. '60, executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association who nominally oversees the 160 Harvard clubs world-wide...
...When it came time for the second payment, [Liao] said he hadn't noted any particular reaction from us on the first payment," said Reardon. "We found absolutely nothing coming...
...Publishers Weekly blurb for the novel Billy Dead notes that it is "reminiscent of Dorothy Allison," and on the surface this comparison is very apt. Like Allison's most famous work, Bastard out of Carolina, Lisa Reardon's debut novel deals with the effect of abuse on the children of a working-class white family and is narrated by one of the children, Ray, now grown up. Ultimately, however, for various reasons Billy Dead is a weaker and less interesting work than its predecessor...
Part of the problem may be that Reardon, attempting to be original, has eschewed using the vengeful, violent Jean--who in her viciousness somewhat resembles the protagonist of Bastard, Ruth Anne Boatwright--as the narrator, instead picking her ineffectual brother Ray. This could have been an interesting switch in points of view, and the structure of the novel, as a series of flashbacks illuminating the present-day situation, could have worked...
...Reardon is sometimes intentionally humorous, as when she is describing, through the voice of Ray, the martial arts exercises that he would do with his best friend Randy Keilman as a child: "I can see us out on his back porch when we were younger, practicing slow, deep breathing through our noses. According to his martial arts comics, a true warrior always breathed through his nose...". But ultimately, Ray's narrative voice is unconvincing more than it is funny, like a poor imitation of Bastard. Perhaps it's all the "likes" she uses:"...where I can see a couple...