The New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) features “The Rubber Room” by Ivan Bosanko
Ivan Bosanko’s insightful book, “The Rubber Room,” was featured in the November issue of The New York Times Book Review.
Current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed in The New York Times Book Review (NYTBR), a weekly paper magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of The New York Times (an American daily newspaper with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to be a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers). It is one of the most well-known and significant book reviews in the business.
At the ripe old age of 12, after the Christmas break, the author brought his presents to school for a class “show and tell.” When he showed the other kids his printer, his teacher suggested that he put it to good use and print something. But what? How about printing a community newspaper?
Ivan Bosanko has been an author, writer, and engineering specialist for over half a century. Back then, every Saturday night, the wheat farmers in their hometown brought their cream cans in and used the money to buy food, school clothes, and small equipment items. Every other Saturday night, Ivan Bosanko sold his newspapers for 20 cents. And so his writing career began. In the eighth grade, he wrote an essay about the first wheat farmers in the county. He called them “Soldiers of the Soil.” A Minneapolis newspaper paid him first-prize money.
In 1980, he had his first book printed. It was titled “The Sea of Grain.” It was a love story about a Quaker country schoolteacher (his mom), an unusual courtship, and the needed change in order to marry his dad. Movie director and producer Stanley Kramers wrote him, “Ivan, your story has movie written all over it.” Contract talks between his publisher and Hollywood broke down, which meant his book never made it to the silver screen.
The author got married in September 1952. Six weeks later, he was drafted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He resumed college classes in 1955 under the GI Bill with a double major in electrical engineering and technical writing. Throughout his lifetime, he has accumulated over 10 years’ worth of college credits. Those college credits really paid off for him later.
In 1978, The Boeing Aerospace Division sent him to Cape Kennedy to straighten out a contract mess on the Apollo/Saturn space program. He solved the problem with NASA’s new director, Werner Von Braun. He became friends with one of his staff members and learned some shocking things about the new director. He had been a Nazi during Adolf Hitler’s regime. The big man’s ego matched his size. When this information leaked out, the other contractors disliked him immensely.
“The Rubber Room” is a real page-turner. The unusual name? That’ll come when you get deep enough into the story. Young KateLynn McCray is the daughter of strict Irish Catholic parents. Set in the 1950s, the story narrates how she must take on the three Cs of her life: CHANGE, COMMITMENT, AND CHALLENGE. Nothing will ever be the same as her life bounced around from pillar to post in the so-called “decade of change.” Historians called it the “Age of Enlightenment,” after the railroad industry’s deepest, darkest secret was finally forced out of its closet.
Readers may purchase “The Rubber Room” by Ivan Bosanko via these links: