Former prof looks back at career

Throughout his childhood, former English professor Hugh Fox was pushed by his parents to attend medical school.

But Fox, who grew up in Chicago, had other career goals — he wanted to become a writer.

Despite his interest in language arts, Fox succumbed to his parents’ demands and enrolled at Loyola University, where he went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in premedicine.

Reluctantly, he continued his path toward being a doctor, opting to attend Loyola for medical school. But while taking his final exam — the exam that could’ve potentially represented the end of his medical studies — Fox finally snapped. He approached his professor’s desk and tore the exam into pieces.

Finally following his desired career path, Fox returned to Loyola where he got his bachelor’s degree in humanities and his master’s degree in English. He then turned his studies to Illinois, where he earned a doctorate in American Literature.

“I got a Ph.D. in American Literature because I was so European. I was Europeanized, I was raised as an Irish Catholic in Chicago,” said Fox. “Then, once I got to Loyola, it was very high-class and very abstract.”

After switching career paths, Fox – who taught in MSU’s Department of American Thought and Language, now known as the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures — said he made the right decision.

Fox has published more than 100 books, including his latest creation, “Collected Poetry,” an achievement that adds to his impressive career as a writer, teacher and archaeologist.

Fox said about 50 of his published books are poetry, while the rest are novels and books based on archaeology.

Early in his career, Fox traveled the world constantly to study a miscellany of languages. He eventually settled down at MSU, where he worked from 1968-1999.

“It was the best deal I ever had in my life,” said Fox, who was given tenure after only two years because he had so many books published.

Fox said he appreciated his freedom to both teach and write at MSU. Sometimes, he combined his two passions, as he did in 1981 with his most economically successful book, “Gods of the Cataclysm: A revolutionary investigation of man and his gods before and after the Great Cataclysm.”

Although his greatest money-maker was a novel, Fox has spent most of his career focused on poetry. “Collected Poetry” is 540 pages of poems on various subjects, including Judaism, which he converted to later in his life.

“I like it a lot,” Fox said. “It’s a book to write a book about frankly, because it’s very different and difficult.”

One person who looks forward to reviewing the book is Fox’s former co-worker, Len Fulton, who owns a small publishing company in California.

“He’s a major figure in the small-press world,” Fulton said. “He has no equal in terms of the reach. He’s probably as close as we have to a Renaissance man.”

Now that the book has been released, Fox has been spending more time on a variety of other projects — including a short story about Israelis who decide to leave Israel and move into the Amazon in Brazil.

“The next move I’d like to make is to see (my books) in film,” he said. “Some of them like ‘Yama’ are just as good as ‘Batman,’ it could be just as good as ‘Harry Potter,’ it’s the same kind of thing.”

The film version may be kept in the family because Fox’s son, Christopher Fox, is studying film at Lansing Community College. He is more interested in making horror films than recreating his father’s work, but ‘Yama,’ a fantasy-horror novel based on the devil found in ancient Indian mythology, has caught his attention.

“The subject matter doesn’t interest me all that much, I’ve read one, ‘Yama,’” Christopher said. “I really like that one, it’s more up my alley than other things.”

Although he isn’t wildly famous, Fox said he’s proud and content with his lengthy career.

“I’m happy the way it’s been,” he said. “I don’t really have to be much more famous than I am.”

Published on Wednesday, July 23, 2008