Hortense Calisher
| Hortense Calisher | |
|---|---|
| Born | 20 December 1911 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | 13 January 2009 (aged 97) New York City, New York, United States |
| Pen name | Jack Fenno |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1951–2004 |
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members.authorsguild.net/hcalisher |
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Hortense Calisher (December 20, 1911 – January 13, 2009) was an American writer of fiction.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Personal life
Born in New York City, New York, and a graduate of Hunter College High School (1928)[1] and Barnard College (1932), Calisher was the daughter of a young German Jewish immigrant mother and a somewhat older Jewish father from Virginia whose family she described as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time".[2]
[edit] Writing style
Calisher involved her closely investigated, penetrating characters in complicated plotlines that unfold with shocks and surprises in allusive, nuanced language with a distinctively elegiac voice, sometimes compared with Eudora Welty, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Henry James. Critics generally considered Calisher a type of neo-realist and often both condemned and praised for her extensive explorations of characters and their social worlds. Her writing was at odds with the prevailing minimalism typical of fiction writing in the 1970s and 1980s that employed a spartan, non-romantic style without undue expressionism.[citation needed]
[edit] Honors and awards
A past president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of PEN, the worldwide association of writers, she was a National Book Award finalist three times, won an O. Henry Award (for "The Night Club in the Woods") and the 1986 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize (for The Bobby Soxer), and was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in 1952 and 1955.[3]
[edit] Death
Calisher died at the age of 97 on January 13, 2009, in Manhattan.[4] She was survived by her husband, Curtis Harnack, and her son from her previous marriage, Peter Heffelfinger. Calisher was predeceased by her daughter, Bennet Heffelfinger.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Fiction
- In the Absence of Angels (1951)
- False Entry (1961)
- Tale for the Mirror (1962)
- Textures of Life, (1963)
- Extreme Magic (1964)
- Journey from Ellipsia (1966)
- The Railway Police, and The Last Trolley Ride (1966)
- The New Yorkers (1970)
- Standard Dreaming (1972)
- Eagle Eye (1973)
- Queenie (1973)
- The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher (1975)
- On Keeping Women (1977)
- Mysteries of Motion (1983)
- Saratoga Hot (1985)
- The Bobby-Soxer (1986)
- Age (1987)
- Kissing Cousins: A Memory (1988)
- The Small Bang (under the pseudonym of Jack Fenno) (1992)
- In the Palace of the Movie King (1993)
- In the Slammer with Carol Smith (1997)
- The Novellas of Hortense Calisher (1997)
- Sunday Jews (2003)
[edit] Non-fiction
- Herself (autobiography, 1972)
- Tattoo for a Slave (memoir, 2004)
[edit] References
- ^ Johnston, Laurie. "Competition Intense Among Intellectually Gifted 6th Graders for Openings at Hunter College High School; Prominent Alumni Program for Seniors", The New York Times, March 21, 1977. Accessed May 11, 2010.
- ^ Calisher, Hortense. Tattoo for a Slave. Orlando: Harcourt, 2004.
- ^ Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 1952 Fellows Page
- ^ Noble, Holcomb B. January 15, 2009. "Hortense Calisher, Author, Dies at 97", The New York Times
