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  • "By Way of Obit":Kurt Eisen (1958–2019)
  • Steven F. Bloom (bio)

It was a mere six months after being with Kurt in Galway in the summer of 2017 that I, along with several other O'Neillians, first learned of his illness: "I'm writing to let you know that I've been diagnosed with lymphoma," he reported rather matter-of-factly in an email on January 28, 2018. The initial shock of his message was immediately tempered by Kurt's hopeful spirit. As he continued to report regularly on his treatment plans and results, the physical challenges of those treatments, and the frustrations of the often-disappointing results, he seemed indefatigable in his resolve, determined to continue his administrative work at Tennessee Tech ("therapeutic," he called it), as well as his editorial work at the Eugene O'Neill Review, for as long as he could, with the loving support of his family. He continued to lace his emails with touches of humor and uplift. When word of his passing arrived on September 13, 2019, the shock and the wavering hopes of the intervening twenty months were replaced with sadness—overwhelming sadness—that Kurt Eisen was gone, no longer among us. Our hearts ache for his wife Rita, his daughter Anna, his mother Chloe, and all of his family and friends; and we reach out to them, as we share, in some small but profound way, in their loss and grief. The Eugene O'Neill Society has lost one of our great ones, whom our current president, Rob Dowling, has aptly called our "soul and conscience."

I probably first met Kurt at the 1995 Boston conference, but honestly, I don't recall anything specific about that meeting. My first actual recollection of Kurt is from the 2003 conference in Tours, France, where, I believe, after Zander Brietzke, Sheila Garvey, and Diane Schinnerer cajoled me into accepting the Society's vice presidency (with the presidency to follow), Zander and I cajoled Kurt into taking over from me as book review editor of the Eugene O'Neill Review. Several extended enjoyable conversations in Tours were followed by many friendly email exchanges over the years and regular rendezvous at O'Neill conferences, from Provincetown to Galway, with all the well-known stops in between. [End Page 119]

Kurt and I discovered that we had a great deal in common. He did his graduate work at Boston University, and I did mine at Brandeis (some years earlier), so we shared an affinity for all things Boston, including the Red Sox, Celtics, and to some extent, the Patriots—decidedly not in 2015, however, when they beat the Seahawks of his beloved Seattle in the final moments, a conclusion that Kurt called, with his inimitable quick wit, "the most ambivalent ending since 'Anna Christie.'" Kurt had taken on long-term administrative roles at Tennessee Tech, first as chair of the Department of English and Communications, then as associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, much as I had done, first at Emmanuel College and then at Lasell College (now Lasell University). Kurt and I had many email exchanges and phone conversations over the years about the highs and the lows of the dual identity of a faculty member/academic administrator, as well as the challenges of sustaining scholarly productivity in the face of administrivia. We both served as Eugene O'Neill Review book review editors and as Eugene O'Neill Society presidents; in the latter position, we both presided over periods during which there was no Society-run international conference, yet we both were intimately involved with the planning and running of such conferences on both ends of our tenures. Kurt's daughter Anna lived in the Boston area for a short while (and stayed on in New England), and my son Daniel moved to and still lives in Kurt's native city of Seattle, so we were able to offer each other advice and support to pass along to our respective offspring. It was Kurt who, at the New London conference in 2014, introduced me to the app called Life360, an early digital resource for tracking/staying connected to your family and friends...

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