Recent Alumna's Summa Thesis Reaps Large Rewards

While Melanie Thernstrom '86-'87 realized that her thesis on the murder of a close friend stood out as the first non-fiction creative writing thesis the English Department had ever allowed, she never dreamed it would be published.

Thernstrom's "memorial" thesis on the murder of a very close friend has just been purchased by Simon and Schuster for a record amount paid to an unpublished author.

Scheduled to come out next fall, Thernstrom's book meshes her feelings about the loss of her friend, meditations on how people maintain ties with deceased friends and relatives and literary theory. The book, entitled "The Dead Girl," focuses on "how one thinks about how one is lost and the mechanism we use to stay connected to them," Thernstrom says.

But the former Dunster House resident is cagey about categorizing her book. She says she is reluctant to disclose too many details about the book as it is still undergoing revision.

"I wrote this as a personal memorial to my friend, it is an attempt to keep her present and not have her forgotten which is what happens when people die. They get forgotten really fast," says Thernstrom, who graduated summa cum laude in English.

"Writing my thesis was one of the only times when my academic work and personal life came together. It was constructing something positive about the most negative experience of my life," she adds.

Simon and Schuster bought the book to include in the opening of their new Pocket Books hardcover line for "double the price" that any other unpublished author had ever received from any publishing firm, says Thernstorm's literary agent Lynn Chu.

Thernstrom received 15 percent royalities and an advance of $367,500 for world publishing rights with bonuses if the book is made into a motion picture or television show, The New York Times reported.

"The money is a queer issue for me and I have mixed feelings about it. I did not write it to be sold," says Thernstrom, who is currently a graduate student in Cornell's M.F.A. Creative Writing Program.

In fact, Thernstrom did not even submit it to the literary agent. Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English Michael C. Blumenthal who had taught Thernstrom read her thesis as a favor to her and was amazed at its scope.

Blumenthal admits that when Melanie first asked him to read her thesis, he was slightly put off by its size--600 pages. "I really did not know how much of a duty or pleasure reading Melanie's book would be because of its length," Blumenthal says.

But Blumenthal says that once he started reading the manuscript, "I literally could not put it down. It was one of those wonderful cases when the dutiful becomes the pleasurable."

"I thought it was just a tremendously moving book," Blumenthal adds. "It really is a labor of love."

Thernstorm's thesis was the first time that the winner of the Joan Gray Untymer Radcliffe Poetry Prize tried her hand at prose, although she has had many poems published. Thernstrom says that her thesis adviser Monroe Engel, senior lecturer in English, helped her out immeasurably with writing the narrative. "I never could have written it without him," she says.

Success Story

Professors and acquaintances of Thernstrom say that they are not surprised by the success of her project.

"She has always been one of those students who you feel like you're learning something from," Blumenthal says. "From her poems and conversations with her I was very struck by what a wonderful heart she had."

Blumenthal recalls a project that melanie wrote for his class during her freshman year. "Melanie wrote this truly astonishing thing in three parts. The first section was called `Thoughts on Love,' the second was `Thoughts on God' and the third was `Thoughts on Self.' It was astonishing how well-read she was in different areas and how well she was able to assimilate all of the information," he remembers.

Melanie's father, Winthrop Professor of History Stephen Thernstrom, says that he is "very happy and proud." He adds, "I am staggered by the whole thing, particularly because the book is very good. It is not a Harlequin Romance, it is a deeply moving personal memoir."

Melanie's English independent study advisor for three years in high school, Dr. Richard Shohet, says, "Melanie is the most gifted high school student I have worked with in all of my 30 years of teaching."

After the revisions on the book are finished, Thernstrom says she hopes to travel to Ireland on a fellowship that she won from Harvard. And in the meantime, she will continue work on a novel she started this summer.