About the Book

 

Danny Roarke’s thirty-six year adventure through love and lust is reminiscent of Homer’s Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses.  The novel begins when Danny is a college senior during the final year of the radical 1960s.  He goes from college student, to professional soccer player haunted by the Vietnam War, to Cornell doctoral candidate enduring several turbulent relationships. Eventually, as a professor he develops a theory of genuine teaching at a small private university in Florida. He defends his most inspired graduate student’s career when she is denied tenure, then both of their careers are sabotaged by two malcontent faculty members.

 

From rebellion in the “free love” Sixties, to reconciliation as his parents age and die, Danny’s journey winds through his friends and extended family of brothers, their wives and children.  Named for the Irish song “Danny Boy” and Daniel in the biblical lion’s den, astrological implications develop as he encounters women from every zodiac sign.  Danny Roarke travels America, Spain, Mexico and Ireland in search of authenticity and one great love. 

 

 

About the Author

Robert Leahy has been a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida since 1989.  He has a B.S. in chemistry from Cortland College, a Master’s in Counseling from the University of Vermont, and a PhD in Philosophy of Education from Cornell University.  He played professional soccer with the Syracuse Scorpions in 1969 and was a Jones Beach, Long Island lifeguard for several summers during and after college. He taught junior high and high school science.  He taught philosophy and philosophy of education at Cortland College, Wayne State University and University of Tampa prior to teaching at Stetson. 

He has published in several well known educational journals, including Educational Theory, College Teaching, Journal of Research and Development in Education, and Kappa Delta Pi.  He was selected to Cambridge University’s Men of Achievement and is listed in Who’s Who in American Education and Who’s Who in America.  He has exhibited his photography and pottery in galleries in DeLand.  He recently completed a text book called Authentic Educating to be published by University Press of America about which he was invited to present at the Oxford Round Table at Oxford University.