Alumni Spotlight will highlight the recent accomplishments of alumni in Southern California.
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C. Anthony Barlow '59 - Camarillo, CA
March 24, 2012
After 50 years of writing about double layers, radar tracking, and particle filters, Carl Barlow (Course 8, '59) published his first novel, Lessons in Paradise (available on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the Kindle, Nook and other digital readers).
Carl writes:
Well, I won’t spoil the book by describing too much here about the characters and their story. The title of the novel is Lessons in Paradise by myself, C. Anthony Barlow. What I would like to explain here is (1) how the book came about and (2) how I now reflect upon it. As to how the book came about, I am a retired theoretical physicist who has never written anything other than technical materials. Being perhaps too theoretical, I thought, “For a good novel, the main thing is not the plot; it’s the characters. They are the story.” So this theorist took his theory one step further and began writing about these people; and before long into the writing, the people seemed real to the author and in fact they took over the story. I quickly lost complete control of the plot. I didn’t even know how the book would end until the actual ending. I must confess that I harbor even after the novel’s completion a real affection for my characters who in an almost literal sense actually wrote the novel. Indeed, to me the story and its persons continue to this day to seem almost real after the telling of the story...
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