The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found

In 1992, Snyder, a writer (Veteran's Park) and an English professor at Colgate University, learned he would not get tenure and that his lucrative teaching job would end in another year. Happily married with four children under the age of seven, Snyder alternated between overconfidence and fear as he attempted to get another university position. This gripping and well-written chronicle, a portion of which was published in Harper's in 1995, describes how being rejected for 90 jobs plunged Snyder into mind-numbing despair. Despite the deep love of his wife, Colleen, the author, who had struggled to enter the privileged world of academia in the first place, was unable to face applying for food stamps or paying the bills with Colleen's child-care jobs. Snyder's depression ended when he was able to accept the loss of his sense of entitlement, and he took a job as a day laborer to support his family. This honest, articulate memoir skillfully explores the psychological as well as the financial pain that comes with the loss of a statusy job and income. Author tour; national publicity. (Apr.)