Novel

Student Body.  North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2014.

The glib, cocky, but well-liked Rick O’Donnell seems to have it all: a loving wife and three beautiful little children, a coterie of wisecracking friends, the respect of his professors, and a promising future ahead of him in the ivied halls of academe.

The charming young professor-to-be, however, also hides a desperate secret: his brief, passionate affair with a hauntingly alluring girl who had been his own student just the semester before, and who now is a fellow teaching assistant with an office right down the hall from his.

If the truth comes out, he stands to lose everything—his once-promising career, his marriage, perhaps even his life itself.

In a finely grained, allusive, sometimes lyrical tale that explores the secret needs of the human condition, the vulnerabilities and the confused motivations, the soul-searching and the angst, a man now struggles, even with his shortcomings and the wrongs he has committed, to do right.  And yet as Rick is confronted with the one thing he cannot have revealed, he is forced in the desperate silence of his guilt to work through all the gnawing uncertainties and the memories he had thought were buried in the past.

Hailed as “vivid” and “emotional,” “smoothly presented” and “carefully crafted,” with an “unexpected conclusion...both believable and satisfying,” the sensual, poignant literary drama Student Body is the frank and intimate tale of the harrowing week and a half which will decide a deeply conflicted man’s entire future...and the lives of the women who love him.

The book is available in paperback and in Kindle.  Amazon of course has sizable samples with the “Look inside” function, and more samples are available here as well: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

(If you purchased Student Body before 30 July 2014, here are the errata.  Copies purchased after that come from the corrected master file.)
“[V]ivid,” “smoothly presented,” and “carefully crafted,” with an “unexpected conclusion...both believable and satisfying.”
          Ray Walsh.  “MSU is Scene for Unusual, Vivid Student Body Novel.”  Lansing State Journal 15 June 2014: 5D.
                    http://curiousbookshop.blogspot.com/2014/06/rays-reviews-rafeeq-o-mcgiverons.html
“[O]nce I started it I could not put it down.  ....  I was totally blown away by the last few chapters, and couldn't wait to learn the outcome!  If you enjoy sex, education, and intrigue, I highly recommend Student Body!”
          Mark Kelland.  Amazon.com.  14 November 2014.
“Fine literary fiction from a true writer’s writer.  ....  The characters are beautifully drawn out” with “very substantial character development” and “wonderful use of language.  A writer’s writer through and through, McGiveron wields the language like a Bach or a Corelli,...producing an exquisite tapestry of imagery that delights both mind and senses.  I enjoyed it more than I can say...”
          T. Ormiston-Smith.  Amazon.com.  16 December 2014.
“Literary Storytelling.  ....  [A] thoroughly well-thought-out concept, with deep insight and extraordinary literary skill.”
          Merc86.  Amazon.com.  12 September 2014.
          “A good read--makes the reader think.”
                    Larry Webb.  Amazon.com.  17 March 2014.

 “[G]reat writing...”
           A.H. 19 June 2013
“[T]he author has caught the specialness of a consensual relationship quite well, along with the sadness of its illicitness.”
          L.P. 17 September 2014.

                                        “I couldn’t put it down!  ...  I really enjoyed the psychological conflict.”
                                                  D.G. 27 August 2014
“This is a work of art....  You’re preserving the beauty of the English language...”
                    P.D.  27 May 2013


“Good stuff!”
          A.S.  1 March 2013
“[S]uperb.  ....  The perfect book, the more you read, the faster you read and the more you need to know, loving it.”
          N.R.  29 September 2014

                                        “[S]killful writing” with “deft foreshadowing” and “nice description.”
                                                  T.K.  5 August 2014.


“It’s a wonderfully entertaining storyline...”
          F.T.  24 January 2013
“You are definitely a talented writer...”
          D.G.  4 January 2014
“I really liked.  ....  All the characters, dialogue, and setting ring very true...”
          R.P. 6 August 2014
“I couldn’t stop reading.  I was very impressed.  This is not necessarily my genre...but you captured me with the story.  I was pulled in.”
          A.C.  4 September 2012