An English professor at Wellesley College since 1989, Meyer teaches courses in nineteenth-century British literature, early twentieth-century American literature, and creative writing, particularly writing for children. As a literary critic, Meyer focuses on Victorian and American literature, with a particular interest in the relationship between literature and history, as well as the intersections between race and gender. Her book, Imperialism at Home: Race and Victorian Women’s Fiction, examines how race relations are used as a metaphor for the relationships between men and women in the fiction of Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and George Eliot.
About Skating with the Statue of Liberty, from Penguin Random House:It is January 1942, and Gustave, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy, has made it to America at last. After escaping with his family from Nazi-occupied France, after traveling through Spain and Portugal and across the Atlantic Ocean, he no longer has to worry about being captured by the Germans. But life is not easy in America, either. Gustave feels out of place in New York. His clothes are all wrong, he can barely speak English, and he is worried about his best friend, Marcel, also Jewish, who is in grave danger back in France. Then there is September Rose, an African American and the most interesting girl in school, who for some reason doesn’t seem to want to be friends with him. Gustave is starting to notice that not everyone in America is treated equally, and his new country isn’t everything he’d expected. But he isn’t giving up.
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