recently divorced and showing all the signs of being in acute pain at the loss of his teenage daughter -- she and the mother had moved to california -- he was a somber yet aggressive first-generation product of new yorks hells kitchen area whod come up the academic ladder the hard way : tuitionless city college in new york before the open admissions policy ; full scholarship for five years of graduate work at columbia while working as a teaching assistant to help pay the rent ; two dozen articles and three books -- one of them i knew to be a definitive text in his field -- since receiving his doctorate .