Montage went to her professor’s office a day early, “some new breed of millennialized authentic significance. Their concert crowds, which completed the test, walked to the T, got to alternative rock.” often include both teenagers and baby South Station, took a bus to Albany, and Either way, it’s unique. Their newest al- boomers, give a pretty good indication of got on the road. bum, The Fun and the Fight, is their most co- their musical range. On the music-streaming Their time in college has matured their hesive yet. You might even guess they’re site Spotify, the group reaches just short of songwriting. Chris, who concentrated in siblings just by listening. Chris’ rhythm 50,000 listeners a month. On February 28, computer science, deals more heavily with guitar playing is almost voice-like, weav- they performed on NBC’s Today Show, their the harmony and mixing side and Jocelyn ing through and echoing Jocelyn’s emotional highest profile performance to date. It’s hard deals more with lyrics and melody. Their vocal lines, which can be upbeat one minute for them to imagine that just a few years sound has developed into something that and sorrowful the next. On stage, Jocelyn of- ago, they were pulling all-nighters to fin- Jocelyn—a former English concentrator— ten seems in a near-trance. Chris, also lost in ish homework assignments between sets. “I can’t quite describe. Chris suggested “Indie the music, is a more serene presence. know either one would’ve been a big deal for blues rock” or “Alternative blues rock” as Today, Chris said, they feel like everything us, and for our parents, too,” Jocelyn said. “I rough approximations. Bourgeois called it they’re doing has a little more weight and can’t believe it when we look back.”

life. Born in Boston, she went to high school The Comic-Book in Iowa, an experience she now describes as “fairly traumatic.” Chu was nerdy and shy and one of the only Asian kids in town, Storyteller and her dream was to play soccer. Only one problem: her school didn’t have a girls’ team. Graphic novelist Amy Chu When the school district forbade her from by s.i. rosenbaum trying out for the boys’ team, Chu’s parents sued and won under Title IX. She joined the boys’ team. But the first time she stepped atching Amy Chu, M.B.A. In fact, before 2010, the closest she’d onto the field to play, the opposing team ’99, stride through Mid- come to writing a comic book was cre- walked off en masse—forfeiting the game town Comics in Manhat- ating a Microsoft PowerPoint presenta- as a political statement, rather than face a W tan’s Times Square is like tion in her old life as a busi- female opponent. watching a queen visit the heart of her ness consultant. “It’s not She remembers the experience as morti- realm. The staff know her, of course. She the same,” she says now. fying. But it stood her in good stead when looks up a few graphic novels by writers “No one says, ‘I was so she eventually made it to Wellesley Col- she knows, then heads upstairs to search moved by your Power- lege, where she completed a double degree for some of her own back issues, breezing Point presentation.’” in East Asian studies and architecture, in past posters of characters she’s written for But perhaps there a joint program with MIT. “You sue under DC and Marvel: Wonder Woman, Dead- were clues to Chu’s Title IX,” she jokes. “That’s a really great pool, Red Sonja, Poison Ivy, Green Hornet. destiny in her early thing to get you into a women’s college.” At 51, Chu is an established com- At Wellesley and ics writer, working for the biggest MIT, Chu was more publishers on some of the biggest in her element than titles in the business. She’s living in the mostly white any comics nerd’s Iowa town she’d left fondest child- behind. “I’d never hood dream. seen so many Asians,” It just was nev- she says. “Suddenly er her dream. As I’m actually popular. a kid, Chu hadn’t I can actually be in- wanted to be comic-book vited to parties.” At writer—or any kind of writ- one party, she met er. She certainly never planned the future writer and on telling stories about antiheroes business consultant in spandex or metal-bikini-clad Jeff Yang ’89, then a warrior babes for a living. Harvard undergradu- ate. Chu had founded Accidental comics writer Amy Chu, whose graphic novel, Sea a literary journal for Sirens, comes out this spring Asian-American stu-

68 May - June 2019 Images courtesy of Amy Chu

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage dents at Wellesley, and Yang was editing a (As it was, the glossy publication lasted for a School, “just to get it out of my system.” student publication at Harvard. “His whole dozen years and had several hundred thou- She enjoyed her time there (“It was awe- thing was, ‘Let’s start a real magazine, an sand readers at its height.) some, actually,” she says. “I was pleasantly Asian-American magazine for the Asian- After graduation, Chu tried several dif- surprised.”) and became a management con- American population,’” Chu recalls. ferent jobs, including running an arts non- sultant, specializing in biotech firms. That The result was A. Magazine, a periodical profit and—through a chance encounter at might have taken her to retirement, if she Yang and Chu co-founded with two other a fundraiser—running the Macau tourism hadn’t run into an old friend at Harvard’s friends. They bootstrapped the publication office in Hong Kong (despite not speaking first-ever Asian-American alumni summit by throwing parties for Asian Americans in Cantonese). By 1999, she says, “I thought in 2010. New York. “If we’d stuck to the parties, we for whatever reason I should get a business Filmmaker and television writer Geor- would have made a ton of money,” she says. degree” and applied to Harvard Business gia Lee ‘98, M.B.A. ‘09, wanted Chu’s help

How Finance Works, by Mihir H. gates the nexus among the Koch brothers’ Desai, Mizuho Financial Group pro- political network, deregulatory business Off the Shelf fessor of finance and professor of interests, and entities like the American Recent books with Harvard connections law (Harvard Business Review Press, Legislative Exchange Council, all bent to- $35 paper). A teacher (and contrib- ward shaping state and local policymak- utor to these pages) succeeds at his ing—in one ideological direction. The three latest installments in the Cass sternest educational challenge: mak- R. Sunstein-book-of-the-month-club, as ing financial statements, and the underlying This Is How We Pray, by Adam Dressler, three academic presses publish current flows of cash and capital, clear and useful M.T.S. ’05 (FaithWords/Hachette, $20). A work by the wildly prolific Walmsley Uni- to the quantitatively shy. down-to-earth, personal—as opposed to versity Professor (see “The Legal Olym- theological or doctrinal—approach to pian,” January-February 2015, page 43): The 8 Brokens, by Nancy Berliner ’79, prayer. The author has made a personal On Freedom (Princeton, $12.95), a suc- Ph.D. ’04 (Museum of Fine Arts, $55). The journey from Oral Roberts University to cinct essay on democracy and navigating museum’s Wu Tu senior curator of Chinese Harvard Divinity School to Grace Com- toward life’s better choices. How art has crafted the first book on bapo (“eight munity Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, Change Happens (MIT, $29.95), an ex- brokens”) painting, which originated in nine- where he is now lead pastor. ploration of social norms and challenges teenth-century China. The works, depicting to them—making sexual harassment sud- antique texts, art, and ephemera, seem The Code of Capital: How the Law denly visible and unacceptable, for in- strikingly modern. Perhaps reflecting the Creates Wealth and Inequality,  by stance, while white nationalism simultane- turmoil of their era, they can evoke strong Katharina Pistor, M.P.A. ’94 (Princeton, ously amplifies its voice and apparent nostalgia for declining cultural norms. $29.95). A Columbia law professor ex- following. Conformity: The Power of plains the status in law of capital in all Social Influences (NYU, $19.95), a com- State Capture, by Alexander Hertel- forms, and how financial assets, intellec- plementary dive into the phenomenon of Fernandez, Ph.D. ’16 (Oxford, $29.95). The tual property, and their brethren affect the the title, and dissent. author, at Columbia, searchingly investi- ownership and distribution of wealth.

Good Charts Workbook, by Scott Berinato (HBR Press, $35 paper). A Har- vard Business Review senior editor pro- vides vivid guidance on how to make “bet- ter data visualization” (a description inferior to the graphical contents within)— a good proxy for vivid thinking.

The Role of the Scroll, by Thomas For- rest Kelly, Knafel Research Professor of mu- sic (W.W. Norton, $29.95). A gorgeously illustrated exploration—both scholarship and a passion project—of “fascinating ob- jects that have always been shrouded by an intriguing kind of aura, and a quality of some- An untitled 1900 ink and color work by an unidentified artist, exhibiting the strikingly

© MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON modern “eight-brokens” style

70 May - June 2019

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage with a startup idea she had: a comics im- soccer scene in Iowa in the 1980s, “Lo and print for books aimed at girls. She knew Chu behold, it’s all dudes,” she recalls. “I didn’t had helped found A. Magazine and wanted her even know if Wonder Woman was DC to handle setting up the business. or Marvel; they’re arguing over Martian TH To Chu, it seemed like a low-cost ven- Manhunter.” THE 25 ture. “Let’s do it,” she said. She threw her- The first assignment was a five-page sto- SECRETARY OF self into research, buying and reading com- ry. Chu turned in a tale about a female cab- ics for the first time and taking a class on driver/mercenary in a dystopian metropo- DEFENSE writing comics. lis who is hired to rescue a hostage named reveals the inner It was immediately clear that the class Abby (the twist: Abby is actually a cat). workings of the was not a place where Chu fit in: like the When she turned it in, something she calls Pentagon and provides essential lessons in how standing outside The bottom of a leadership and of time,” not least be- sixteenth-century English alchemical driving innovation. cause they continued scroll associated with to be produced after George Ripley the invention of the eminently more practi- not. An Iowa Writ- cal codex and its ers’ Workshop grad- spread in the Middle uate, she begins her Ages. The author, who novel, The Unpass- previously wrote First ing (FSG, $26), with Nights, and taught the the feigned collapse eponymous course, is —a stroke?—of the an incorporator of this narrator’s mother, magazine. and proceeds to a real Taiwanese immi- The health beat. Dia- grant family’s loss, in betes Head to Toe,  Alaska. by Rita R. Kalyani ’99 et al. (Johns The lifespan. Mom

WELLCOME LIBRARY, LONDON Hopkins, $22.95 Hacks, by Darria paper), is a com- Long Gillespie, prehensive guide to M.B.A. ’05 (DaCa- understanding and living with an epidemic, po, $15.99), an emergency physician, is a chronic disease. Well: What We Need breezy checklist of nutrition, exercise, to Talk About When We Talk About sleep, and other tips new mothers can use Health, by Sandro Galea, M.P.H. ’00 (Ox- to get—and keep—it together. Elder- “ONE OF AMERICA’S ford, $24.75), Boston University’s public- hood, by Louise Aronson, M.D. ’92 MOST RESPECTED health dean, addresses Americans’ mis- (Bloomsbury, $30), is a memoir, meditation, LEADERS . . . guided confusion of medicine with health, and guide to “redefining aging, transforming [and] one of the great and the costly mistakes (“[W]e spend so medicine, reimagining life” by a geriatrician technologists of our time.” much and get so relatively little for it”) with an M.F.A. who runs UC, San Francis- —ERIC SCHMIDT, stemming from that category error—and co’s health-humanities program. Her ex- technical advisor, Alphabet Inc. what to do about it. amples and spirit are lovely, and wise.

Debut novels. The Organ of Sense, by VC: An American Industry, by Tom Alan Ehrlich Sachs ’07 (Farrar, Straus and Nicholas, Abernathy professor of business Giroux, $26). “In an account sent to the administration (Harvard, $35). A first his- Philosophical Transactions…a young G. tory of venture capital, which has played W. Leibniz…” runs the opening sentence an outsized role in propelling U.S. entre- READ AN EXCERPT: prh.com/insidethefivesidedbox of a fiction, set in 1666, concerning a solar preneurship and growth. The author eclipse, a blind astronomer, and much else. grounds readers well, linking investments The author, a Harvard Lampoon alumnus, in, say, artificial-intelligence startups today ON SALE 6/11/2019 concentrated (no surprise) in the history to those in whaling expeditions two cen- of science. Chia-Chia Lin ’03, J.D. ’07, did turies ago.

Harvard Magazine 71

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage

From Chu’s oeuvre: a marked by a focus on human quirks and 2019 comic book tied to diversity. In her Red Sonja holiday special, KISS’s “End of the Road” tour and a for example, the Hyrkanian warrior takes a comics imprint created whirlwind tour of the many holiday tradi- by rapper DMC, with a tions represented in New York City. graffiti-artist heroine. Her work is not all heavy metal and su- ics in 2011, but Chu kept perheroes. Chu’s first full-length graph- writing. The following ic novel, Sea Sirens, drawn by Janet K. Lee year she self-published and being published this June by Random her own book, Girls Night House, is the story of a Vietnamese-Ameri- Out and Other Stories, a can girl who tangles with an undersea world collection of short com- of mermaids and sea serpents. ics, and started promot- It’s an unusual thing to start a new career ing it at conventions and at 45, let alone one as talent-driven and dif- comics stores around ficult as comics writing,let alone to thrive at the country, which even- it. But Chu says every twist and turn in her tually led to profession- own story has contributed to her current

al writing jobs. Soon she career; on her LinkedIn page, her bio says “mind-blowing” happened: the instructor was being entrusted with legacy characters simply: “I tell stories.” loved it. “A little light bulb went off,” she at the two biggest comics publishers, DC “I don’t think I could have done this when recalls. “I could actually be semi-decent at and Marvel—characters like Ant-Man, I was 23,” she says, heading out the door this. People are having a reaction to some- Deadpool, even KISS. (Yes, the band. Yes, of Midtown Comics with a stack of fresh thing I made up.” they have a comic book.) No matter what books in her hand. “I wouldn’t have been Lee and Chu launched Alpha Girl Com- character she’s writing, Chu’s comics are good at it.”

of online activism can A New Story of Suffrage feel deprived of that Why They Marched: vitality—which makes Untold Stories of the Fresh portraits of foot soldiers for women’s right to vote Susan Ware’s Why They Women Who Fought for by marina n. bolotnikova Marched: Untold Stories of the Right to Vote, the Women Who Fought for by Susan Ware the Right to Vote, all the (Harvard, $26.95) f the women’s suffrage movement rode through the country on horseback, more of a delight for a took place today, what would it look shouted through town squares, dropped modern reader. Ware tells a new history like? Radically different, surely, from leaflets from airplanes, and marched in of women’s suffrage through portraits of I the way it did in the nineteenth and neatly choreographed pageants to spread 21 women (and one man) both famous and twentieth centuries, when its organizers the word about their cause. Today’s world obscure, from the 1848 Seneca Falls Con- vention through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. “How can someone demand the vote without having that basic political right in the first place?” asks Ware, Ph.D. ’78, an independent scholar of women’s history and associate of Har- vard’s history department. Part of the answer is that the suffrag- ists were intrepid and relentless. They were the first political pro- National Women’s Party members picket the White House, 1917. In the years leading up to the Nineteenth Amendment’s passage, the protesters were a regular presence in Lafayette Square.

72 May - June 2019 Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746