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WORK TITLE: Oink
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Newon, Judith
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
University of California, Davis, professor emerita.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
J.L. Newton writes mystery stories and tends garden in California. Her “Emily Addams Food for Thought” series begins with the 2017 Oink. Also going by the name Judith Newton, she is Professor Emerita at land grant University of California, Davis. Newton likes cooking for friends and family, and incorporates that expertise into her story. Oink centers on foodie professor Emily Addams in the women’s study department at Arbor State, a land grant university in Northern California. She is surprised to discover that she is a suspect in the poisoning of Professor Peter Elliott of the Plant Biology department. Elliott was developing a genetically modified corn plant that could be fed to pigs when he was suspiciously found in a coma in a pig pen holding a piece of Emily’s cornbread.
Emily is especially hurt because she believes that food is an important element of community and culture. She gathers a group of colleagues to investigate and learns that their usually liberal-minded college has turned to profit-hungry corporate interests that want to defund the women’s and ethnic studies programs. Meanwhile, Emily raises her daughter and dates the math teacher. Newton adds a recipe at the end of each chapter.
Able to adequately mix important subjects with an airy, fun tone, the book “is intriguing and full of twists, and it’s hard to find fault with the author’s theme of communal empowerment, her love of food, and her frequent instructional asides. A highly educated foodie’s dream,” according to a writer in Kirkus Reviews. On the other hand, Danielle Nielsen wrote in Phi Kappa Phi Forum that while the story’s mystery and Emily’s actions to find who poisoned Elliott are successful, “Where Newton begins to lose this reader, at least, is in the simplistic and surface-level musings of campus politics that do not add to the mystery at hand.”
Calling the new series promising, a Publishers Weekly contributor exalted: “The winning lead, superior prose, and clever plotting set this above the pack,” adding that the recipes are a bonus. On the Mystery Scene website, Betty Webb observed: “Oink is an indictment of the ramifications felt whenever Big Business inserts itself into scientific research. Yet the book manages (mostly) to disguise itself as a cozy with recipes.” Webb enjoyed the combination of gentle mystery with a strongly feminist theme that can be enjoyed by traditionalists. Webb also noted that the book is so deftly plotted that Newton proves to be an old hand despite this being her debut novel.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2017, review of Oink.
Phi Kappa Phi Forum, fall, 2017, Danielle Nielsen, review of Oink, p. 31.
Publishers Weekly, November 13, 2017, review of Oink, p. 43.
ONLINE
Mystery Scene, https://mysteryscenemag.com/ (August 28, 2017), Betty Webb, review of Oink.
J. L. Newton is Professor Emerita at a land grant university. She is at work on another mystery and lives in California where she tends her garden and cooks for family and friends. You can contact her at jnjocals@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/TastingHomeComingOfAgeInTheKitchen, and on Twitter: @jnewton70.
J. L. Newton is Professor Emerita at a land grant university. She is at work on another mystery and lives in California where she tends her garden and cooks for family and friends. You can contact her at jnjocals@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/TastingHomeComingOfAgeInTheKitchen, and on Twitter: @jnewton70.
Newton, J.L.: OINK
Kirkus Reviews. (July 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Newton, J.L. OINK She Writes Press (Indie Fiction) $11.52 4, 18 ISBN: 978-1-63152-212-3
Newton (Tasting Home, 2013) makes her fiction debut with a cooking-focused whodunit set at a California college in the late 1990s. Emily Addams, the story's narrator, is the head of the women's studies program at Arbor State, a former land-grant school that, as the millennium approaches, faces budgetary issues. As per usual, programs like Emily's are the first on the chopping block, as the higher-ups plan to absorb women's and ethnic studies into larger departments like humanities or social sciences. While Emily schemes with her colleagues on how to fight this reorganization, a scandal rocks the campus. Peter Elliot, a professor of plant biology, is found poisoned in the college's hog yard and taken to the hospital. Peter has his enemies on campus: he is an outspoken proponent of pesticides and genetically modified foods. But Emily becomes a prime suspect because Peter was found with a piece of cornbread in his hand--it contained ingredients from a recipe that she is well-known for. And she had just brought her cornbread to a college event. Emily is cleared of the crime, but the fact that she was implicated arouses her suspicions, so she begins to investigate the incident, relying on her network of female faculty members to dig into Peter's many secrets. On top of saving her program and solving a mystery, Emily has to juggle her teaching responsibilities; time with her daughter, Polly; and a romance with a new beau, a math professor. The novel, while dealing with heavy subjects, maintains a light and airy tone. The prose is more focused on driving the plot than lingering on descriptions, except when Emily and her colleagues speak, often very informatively, about their fields. To add to the fun, Newton puts a recipe at the end of every chapter for a dish that was mentioned in that part, giving the text a nice interactivity. Emily is a well-rounded, inquisitive character whom the reader gets to know well; the rest of the players are somewhat flatter, often acting as props for the propulsion of the plot. That plot, however, is intriguing and full of twists, and it's hard to find fault with the author's theme of communal empowerment, her love of food, and her frequent instructional asides. A highly educated foodie's dream, this tale delivers a unique take on both the campus and mystery genres.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Newton, J.L.: OINK." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A498344847/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6d23503e. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A498344847
OINK: A FOOD FOR THOUGHT MYSTERY
Danielle Nielsen
Phi Kappa Phi Forum. 97.3 (Fall 2017): p31.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi
http://www.phikappaphi.org/web/Publications/PKP_Forum.html
Full Text:
BY J.L. NEWTON
She Writes Press, 2017. $16. 256pp.
Oink, J.L. Newton's first mystery novel and now out in paperback, follows her memoir Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen, three single-authored scholarly monographs, and two edited collections in gender studies.
A retired women's studies professor, Newton uses her familiarity with academia to craft this campus mystery novel, akin to Jane Smiley's Moo. Set at Arbor State, a public university in California, narrator and women's studies professor Emily Addams finds herself at the center of a poisoning on campus. Peter Elliott, a fellow faculty member whose research is sponsored by agricultural behemoth Syndicon, is found unconscious in the university's pigsty holding a piece of cornbread studded with caramelized onions and goat cheese, Addams' signature bread. The day before the poisoning, Addams had baked a batch for a Native American studies reception.
The cast of characters in Oink is diverse, yet Addams remains the only developed character. While Addams tries to clear her name and solve the mystery, she attends various committee meetings addressing the fate of the ethnic and women's studies programs at Arbor State. Through these meetings we meet Vice Provost Lorna Vogle and faculty members Alma Castillo, Isobel Flores-Rivera, and Frank Walker. Visits to Juan Carlos Vega, Collin Morehead, Tess Ryan, Emily's closest friend, and Teresa Fuentes-Elliott, Peter Elliott's wife, introduce us to faculty in the sciences.
Community and food are at the heart of Newton's novel. Addams' newest research agenda addresses food, corn especially, and recipes that build community. Addams and her colleagues gather around food to celebrate, brainstorm how to save their programs, and commemorate different cultures. At the end of every chapter, Newton includes a corn-centric recipe that plays a prominent role in that chapter, from the corn and cherry scones that Emily eats on her way to work in the first chapter to the candy corn cupcakes that she and her ten-year-old daughter, Polly, decorate for Halloween. The infamous caramelized onion and goat cheese cornbread also makes an appearance. This emphasis on corn also connects Elliott's research with GMO conglomerate Syndicon to the novel's plot.
As Emily works the mystery of Elliott's poisoning, she narrates the often contentious relationships found on college campuses between the sciences and humanities, and faculty and administration. The novel also addresses the corporatization of post-secondary education, the importance of grant funding for the hard sciences, the place of diversity studies in the modern university, the stigmatization of women in the sciences, and the role of genetically-modified organisms in agricultural research.
This wide-ranging set of concerns is familiar to many on college campuses. At the same time, the broad nature of these concerns is the weakest part of Newton's novel and makes it difficult to determine the intended audience. On the one hand, these topics are discussed in straightforward language, suggesting those unfamiliar with the academy may be the audience. On the other hand, the novel is relatively short, and these complex issues deserve more attention for an audience unfamiliar with them.
Oink is not a difficult read, and the community-building mystery is successful. Newton weaves an interesting mystery as we, along with Emily Addams, try to figure out just who poisoned Peter Elliott and why. Where Newton begins to lose this reader, at least, is in the simplistic and surface-level musings of campus politics that do not add to the mystery at hand.
DANIELLE NIELSEN (Murray State University) is an associate professor of English at Murray State University, where she teaches courses in writing, rhetoric, professional communication, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Nielsen, Danielle. "OINK: A FOOD FOR THOUGHT MYSTERY." Phi Kappa Phi Forum, vol. 97, no. 3, 2017, p. 31. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A512184833/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1ed61f55. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A512184833
Oink: A Food for Thought Mystery
Publishers Weekly. 264.46 (Nov. 13, 2017): p43.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Oink: A Food for Thought Mystery
J.L. Newton. She Writes, $16.95 trade paper (219p) ISBN 978-1-63152-212-3
Newton, a professor of women's studies for 20 years, puts her insider knowledge of academia to fine use in this highly entertaining whodunit, the first in a promising series. In 1999, Emily Addams, the head of the women's studies department at California's Arbor State University, faces a professional crisis. The university, facing decreasing support from the state and increasingly dependent on corporate funding, is looking for ways to save money. The new vice provost advocates subsuming women's studies into another department. As Emily and her colleagues running similar small programs scramble to survive, she becomes enmeshed in an inquiry into the attempted homicide of Peter Elliott, a plant biologist whom she knows only slightly. Peter, who was experimenting with feeding pigs genetically modified corn, was found in a coma in the hog yard. The police suspect he was poisoned, possibly by cornbread that Emily made for a campus reception. The winning lead, superior prose, and clever plotting set this above the pack. Recipes are a bonus. (BookLife)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Oink: A Food for Thought Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 13 Nov. 2017, p. 43. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A515325998/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=28be0081. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A515325998
Oink
by J.L. Newton
She Writes Press, April 2017, $16.95
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J.L. Newton’s Oink is an indictment of the ramifications felt whenever Big Business inserts itself into scientific research. Yet the book manages (mostly) to disguise itself as a cozy with recipes. To up the cozy ante even more, the action takes place on a university campus, ivy-covered buildings and all. Readers expecting high-minded ivory towers, though, will find themselves shocked. The politics at Arbor State are more vicious than any back-alley knife fight, and the subsequent injuries can be just as fatal. Plant biology professor Peter Elliott is overseeing a study of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) when he is found comatose in the university’s hog barn with a poisoned piece of cornbread in his hand. After he is rushed off to the hospital, the finger-pointing begins. Emily Addams, a professor of women’s studies, fears that the cornbread may have come from her own kitchen. But the poisoning isn’t her only problem. The Powers That Be at the university are beholden to the money provided by Syndicon Corp., to continue their studies on GMO corn, so the ensuing investigation must step softly around the fact that the poisoned cornbread was baked with GMO corn. Another problem for Emily? The university is in the process of merging its various departments, an unsettling plan some fear might entail the dropping of various humanities studies. Although Oink’s tone is as gentle as most cozies, it is a strongly feminist book which can still be enjoyed by traditionalists. Emily, Oink’s strong and likable protagonist, believes that culture is influenced by food, and that many of humanity’s great leaps forward originated in kitchens. This makes Oink a whodunit not only to enjoy for its central mystery—who poisoned Professor Elliott and why?—but to learn from. The GMO and foodie discussions are well-handled by author Newton, a professor emerita at UC Davis. Newton is also the author of a memoir titled Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen. Oink may be her first mystery, but it is so deftly plotted that it reads like she’s an old hand.
Betty Webb