How a Novel about Chocolate Fed Writing Appetites in Camden

The summer before they were to begin college on the Camden campus, 400 first-year students already had something in common: an assignment to read Joanne Harris’s novel Chocolat.

“I was looking forward to not having to do summer reading after all the high school requirements,” says Morgan Goldberg, a first-year pre-pharmacy major who once struggled with reading comprehension. But she found herself enjoying the book, getting to know Harris’s characters intimately.

Nearly a year since this first assignment, Goldberg and her classmates have discussed and written on Chocolat (Penguin 2000); held their own chocolate festival; met the film’s screenwriter, Robert Nelson Jacobs; read the book’s sequel; and recently heard Harris discuss her journey as a writer.

Goldberg was surprised that Harris, a native of Yorkshire, England, had a British accent. “Sometimes when you read a book,” she says, “you don’t think that the person who wrote it is even real.”

Yet Harris is as real as the community of students of which Goldberg is a member: non-English majors curious about the world of writing and literary research.

Building a community was exactly the point of the assignment – and the book itself. Holly Blackford, associate professor of English at Rutgers—Camden, where she directs the writing program, chose Chocolat as a shared novel two years ago. The book depicts a single mother who moves into a provincial French town to open a subversive chocolate shop across the street from a church.

“The novel evokes point of view and the theme of immigrating into a new community,” Blackford says.  “I hoped that this theme would mirror the quest of first-year students and become particularly meaningful.”

The Rutgers—Camden undergraduate writing program offers two semesters of required composition courses – the first course is for all students, the second course is for non-English majors only. It is here that undergraduates learn that good writing and research skills aren’t just useful to understand high-brow literature; these also are essential for success in any field they decide to pursue.

“First-year composition should take a leading role in transitioning students to a broader worldview, and writing should define their pathway to a global mindset in a world where we increasingly discover one another through virtual text,” Blackford says.

Blackford was able to secure a visit from Harris to the Gordon Theater on April 25 after years of courting the best-selling author’s agent. The timely release of Chocolat’s sequel, The Girl with No Shadow, in the United States (HarperCollins, 2008) prompted Harris to make her Camden debut as part of a world tour.

Writing stories began for Harris as a way to annoy her mother, who advised her that being a writer wasn’t a proper job. Harris’s favorite reading genres – science fiction, horror, and fantasy – also were frowned upon by her mom.  (No wonder Harris’s first novel, Evil Seed, was about vampires.) But the former Leeds Grammar School teacher found international success in writing when she focused on subject matter that she cared about: the people in her life.

“In some respects, my mother is right. The publishing industry is difficult to get into, “ Harris noted during her talk. “Writing must be fun for you. So if you don’t publish, at least you are having fun. … It’s about finding out what you care about.”

Following Harris’s talk and book signing, the students presented their own original research during a second annual research symposium directed by teaching assistants Elizabeth Allen and Candice Kaup. Participating students were on track with Harris’s advice to write on issues that struck a personal chord by presenting research on varying subjects from isolation caused by iPods to choosing hybrid cars.

William Haas, a horror film connoisseur who discussed the societal commentaries in movies like the Saw and Friday the 13th series, was surprised the author of Chocolat once wrote about vampires. “This program has given me the opportunity to write creatively that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Haas says.

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