Silver City writer William Charland has a new novel out, from his alter life in higher education. He entered the field in 1961, while still in graduate school, and left when he retired from a part-time position at Western New Mexico University in 2011.

"That's 50 years," Charland commented, "in and out of a profession that has seen a lot of re-inventing. And that may be the reason I wrote 'Tenuous State: A Tale of Survival in the West,' to share my long view. It's the saga of a young, green dean with a tumultuous love life, caught up in a historic, half-Hispanic school that is fighting for its life."

While its Southwestern setting is colorful and exciting, he said, the fate of this small school is at the core of the novel as it probes the real world of today's higher education. In its struggle to survive a sweeping national movement that threatens its identity, the school is like many another hallowed institution.

Charland (billcharland.com) is the author of nine books, primarily in the career field. Tenuous State is his third novel. He was a nationally-distributed careers columnist for a number of years at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and has written extensively for the Christian Science Monitor.

Charland will be reading from Tenuous State at several sites around Silver City in coming weeks. Published by Sunstone Press of Santa Fe, the book is on Amazon.com.