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Jeffrey Berman's book Norman N. Holland: The Dean of American Psychoanalytic Critics is comprised of two parallel narratives or texts that intertwine. One is a biography of Norman Holland and a survey of his works. The other recounts Jeffrey Berman's personal involvement with Norm, starting from his time as an undergraduate at SUNY Buffalo, where Norm was Chair of the English Department, to his early career as an Assistant Professor at SUNY Albany when Norm was instrumental in Jeffrey's promotion and tenure, and continuing through their relationship as colleague and friend over the decades.
A note on nomenclature: Since I knew Norm well and have come to know Jeff, I will assume the informality and collegiality that both men fostered by referring to them by their first names in this review. Norm's typical writing style was informal and interactive, often using the first person and addressing his reader as “you.” In his book, Jeff uses two names to refer to his subject: “Norman Holland” as the person and “Holland” as the literary critic and theorist. Jeff creates a virtual conversation with both entities—first as people, then as a dialogue between Jeff's books and Norm's. Sometimes the dialogue is oppositional (mano a mano), and other times it is collaborative (hand in hand).
Jeff's initial meeting with Norm was confrontational when the senior English major objected to the department's refusal to re-appoint his favorite instructor. Shortly thereafter, when Jeff was a graduate student at Cornell, that instructor committed suicide not long after phoning Jeff to tell him about the plan. The issue of suicide resonates throughout the book, emerging
as a central theme in Jeff's scholarship, from his dissertation on suicide in Joseph Conrad's works to several death-related books. This theme also appears in a tense written correspondence, when Norm considered “rational suicide” in response to a potentially fatal cancer diagnosis, and Jeff argued against the idea. Uncannily,