Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead | Suggested Reading

Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead What Do I Read Next?

In response to the tragic shootings in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, Hudgins wrote "When Bullies Ruled the Hallways," published in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times, May 1, 1999. In this brief essay, Hudgins recalls in graphic detail the various strategies of domination and torture the "jock-kings" used at his own high school in Montgomery, Alabama. Hudgins admits to having "nursed revenge fantasies against the jocks who tormented me" but "never came close to acting them out." He concludes, "I valued my life and theirs too much."

"The Secret Sister" is a recent memoir in The Hudson Review (Winter 1999), which tells how, at age ten, Andrew Hudgins stumbles upon a well-kept family secret. An "error" on his birth certificate begins the process of revelation that ends in a startling fact: there had been a sister, Andrea, killed at age two...
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