UC News

UC Professor's Novel Featured in New York Times

headshot of Anne Bowling By Anne Bowling
3 minute read June 11, 2018

Looking for a perfect summer read? Look no further than Leah Stewart’s “What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw” (Putnam). The novel was hand-picked by reviewer Sarah Dunn from among a bumper crop of summer fiction to be featured in The New York Times Book Review this month. 


The novel is the sixth penned by Stewart, who also teaches creative writing and serves as head of the Department of English at the University of Cincinnati McMicken College of Arts & Sciences. Her career as a fiction writer began in 2001 with publication of the thriller “Body of a Girl,” which The Philadelphia Inquirer called, “a remarkable debut…the beginning of a special career of notable novels.” 

Following that prescient review came more titles—and more accolades—culminating with Stewart’s current “Charlie Outlaw,” a story of two actors whose careers intersect as one ascends to fame and the other watches fame fade. The novel features the eponymous Charlie Outlaw, who flees to a remote island to escape the spotlight and ruminate on a break-up with his actress-girlfriend Josie Lamar—and how his actions may have brought it about. For her part, Lamar, 41, struggles to make peace with the fact that her career is waning, and with it the heroic, cult TV character of Bronwyn Kyle, who was indelibly tied to her identity. 

Picture of Novel Bookcover, What you don't know about Charlie Outlaw
When Charlie finds himself in danger of the kidnapping variety, Josie finds an opportunity to return to her identity—and be a hero in real life. The story is a foray into the world of acting—a world only a small percentage of the population gets to experience. 

“For a reader who—like this one—ocassionally thinks, Why would anyone in is or her right mind want to be an actor?, Stewart’s novel offers some answers,” writes Dunn in the Times review. “There’s…the joy of slipping into someone else’s skin—of experiencing situations and emotions the rest of us go to considerable lengths to avoid.” 

In this way Stewart mines the best of both dramatic worlds—the tension of tight plot twists and deeper dimensions of love and loss in a story Entertainment Weekly called, “More than a glitzy Hollywood tale…it’s a surprisingly insightful, even poignant meditation on stardom.” 

Read the review here.

Tags

Related Stories

1

UC awarded nearly $1 million to help fight infant obesity spike

December 12, 2025

University of Cincinnati researcher Cathy Stough spoke with Spectrum News1 about a nearly $1 million National Institutes of Health grant awarded to UC to help prevent infant obesity through early nutrition support and family-based interventions.

2

Celebrating the newest Bearcats on Decision Day

December 11, 2025

The University of Cincinnati admits its newest Bearcats for Fall 2026. Interest in the university is at an all-time high with more than 35,000 applicants for admission. Decision Day was also a time to celebrate 10 new Marian Spencer Scholarship recipients.

3

UC alumna named a 2026 Marshall Scholar

December 10, 2025

The British Government announced the 43 American students who will receive Marshall Scholarships for 2026, including UC alumna Taylor Allgood. The new recipients will begin their graduate studies at leading universities in the United Kingdom next September.