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Jason Marks is a professor emeritus of English and
Journalism at Baruch College, CUNY, where he taught for
two decades. Prior to that, Marks was a newspaper editor,
reporter, and feature writer, with stories published
nationwide, including The New York Times. A noted
journalist, agent of change, and shaper of young minds,
Marks has successfully blended the psychological
after-effects of tragedy with the healing power of the
arts in his newest novel Looking for Canterbury. His
fascination with historical figures and those who are
shaped by them fills this novel as well as his previous
works.
In
addition to writing the novel Looking for Canterbury,
Jason Marks is the author of Around the World in 72
Days (Sterling House
Publisher, 1999), the real-life story of two young
American women journalists (one of them the famous
reporter, Nellie Bly) who raced each other around the
globe in 1889-1890 trying to beat the "record" set by
Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg in the then
best-selling novel Around the World in 80 Days.
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Marks has just completed collaborating with Stuart H.Q.
Quan, MD, on The Tao and the Cutting Edge: Memoirs of a
Chinese-American Cancer Surgeon. As related to Professor
Marks, this is the life story of one of the greatest
surgeons of our time. Dr. Quan, who was recently feted
upon his retirement from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center after fifty years there in the Colorectal Surgical
Service, is internationally renowned for the quality of
care he provided a vast number of patients (Marks among
them), many of whom came to him with forms of cancer that
are among the most difficult to treat. Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center has endowed a Chair in Dr. Quan's
name.
Marks is also the co-author of the novel Two Souls, One
Body (Fawcett Gold Medal, reprinted in Canadian and
British editions). This novel depicts the lives of two
starving American G.I.s in the Korean War who are cut off
from their unit by the Communist army. One murders the
other in a fight over a chicken at the moment a bomb
explodes in the area. The murder-victim is riddled with
shell fragments and presumed to have been killed in
action. Ripping off the victim's dogtags, the slayer (who
becomes honorably discharged from the military) returns to
the States and goes to the small Midwestern town where the
victim lived. There he attempts to redeem himself by
living out the life of the dead man, ingratiating himself
with the latter's family and fiancee.
In
nonfiction, Marks also authored
12 Who
Made It Big, a
series of personality profiles (including those of a mayor
of New York City and a CEO of Philip Morris). Published by
the Baruch College Alumni Association in 1982, it
contained profiles of twelve outstanding graduates of
that institution.
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