“History, poetry, art, and family come together in Mary Ann Hogan’s loving exploration of her journalist father’s life. Her quest to understand this gifted and complicated man is a delight to read, leaving us with a rich portrait of not one, but two consequential lives.” —Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor, PBS NewsHour
Mary Ann Hogan grew up in the family home on Circle Way, attending Tam High just down the hill. She was a writing teacher and nationally syndicated journalist, best known in the Bay Area from her work at the Oakland Tribune. Eric Newton was editor of the Mill Valley Record from 1979 to 1982, and went on to a national career in journalism, philanthropy, and education. He read some of Circle Way’s final chapter in poetry form at the O’Hanlon center and attended its virtual poetry classes during the pandemic.
Reading from the new book Circle Way, Eric Newton will explore his late wife Mary Ann Hogan’s relationship with her father, longtime SF Chronicle book editor Bill Hogan. Despite a life of letters, Bill never wrote a memoir. Mary Ann hoped writing her book would redeem them. “I will spend the rest of my life trying to fully know, to fully understand, and fully appreciate who my father was,” she said. But she died before finishing, so Eric wrote the final chapter.
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More praise for CIRCLE WAY:
“One can’t help comparing Mary Ann Hogan to Joan Didion. The prose is subtle; the insights, piercing. CIRCLE WAY…speaks eloquently to what goes unsaid in any family.”
—Susan Stern, director,
Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez
“A love letter not only to the author’s literary father, but also to the vanished lives and sensibilities of an earlier California…it’s a bittersweet pleasure to share her journey.”
—Susan Pollock, writer and editor
“CIRCLE WAY is a gorgeous and refreshing exploration of writing and family. Hogan’s masterfully woven memoir offers new ways to consider the stories of our lives—what appear to be gaps in knowledge are ultimately paths to understanding.”
—Kate Schmitt, author of Singing Bones
CIRCLE WAY: A DAUGHTER’S MEMOIR, A WRITER’S JOURNEY HOME
By Mary Ann Hogan