Thomas Berger (novelist)

Thomas Louis Berger (born July 20, 1924) is an American novelist. Probably best known for his picaresque novel Little Big Man and the subsequent film by Arthur Penn, Berger has explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the police procedural, the detective novel, science fiction, and classical legend.

Thomas Berger
Born	Thomas Louis Berger July 20, 1924 (1924-07-20) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Education	University of Cincinnati, Columbia University
Period	1958–present
Genres	Literary fiction
Spouse(s)	Jeanne Redpath
Influences Mark Twain, Franz Kafka
Influenced Jonathan Lethem

Biography

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Berger interrupted his college career to enlist in the United States Army in 1943, where his experiences in Europe later provided him with background for his first novel, Crazy in Berlin, published in 1958. On his return, he studied at the University of Cincinnati, receiving a B.A. in 1948. He then pursued graduate work in English at Columbia University, leaving his thesis unfinished to enroll in the writers workshop at the New School for Social Research. Here Berger met and married an artist, Jeanne Redpath, in 1950. He supported himself during this time by working as a librarian at the Rand School of Social Science, and was briefly on staff at the New York Times Index. Berger later became a copy editor at Popular Science Monthly, and performed free-lance editing during the early years of his writing career.

Eventually, Berger was able to devote himself to writing full-time, particularly after the notoriety gained by his third book, Little Big Man, in 1964. Although he would occasionally put his hand to a short story, a play, or non-fiction article (including a stint at Esquire with a column on film criticism), Berger preferred the long narrative form of the novel, and has produced a steady run of critically acclaimed books throughout his career. In 1984 his book The Feud was nominated by the Pulitzer committee for fiction for the Pulitzer Prize, but the Pulitzer board overrode their recommendation and instead chose William Kennedy's Ironweed.

Awards and honors

Berger received a Dial fellowship in 1962. In 1965, he received a Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Western Heritage Award, both for Little Big Man. Reinhart's Women won Berger an Ohioana Book Award, and he was a Pulitzer Prize nominee in 1984, for The Feud. Long Island University awarded Berger a Litt. D. in 1986.

Adaptations

Berger may be best known for Little Big Man, the movie made from his 1964 novel. Released in 1970, it was directed by Arthur Penn, and starred Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. Neighbors, with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarty, was released in 1981. Bill D'Elia produced and directed a film adaptation of The Feud in 1989. A version of the 1992 novel Meeting Evil, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Luke Wilson, was filmed in 2011, and awaits release.

His play Other People was produced at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 1970.

Works

Novels

• Crazy in Berlin (1958)
• Reinhart in Love (1962)
• Little Big Man (1964)
• Killing Time (1967)
• Vital Parts (1971)
• Regiment of Women (1973)
• Sneaky People (1975)
• Who is Teddy Villanova? (1977)
• Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel (1978)
• Neighbors (1980)
• Reinhart's Women (1981)
• The Feud (1983)
• Nowhere (1985)
• Being Invisible (1987)
• The Houseguest (1988)
• Changing the Past (1989)
• Orrie's Story (1990)
• Meeting Evil (1992)
• Robert Crews (1994)
• Suspects (1996)
• The Return of Little Big Man (1999)
• Best Friends (2003)
• Adventures of the Artificial Woman (2004)

Stories

• Granted Wishes: Three Stories (1984)

Plays

• Other People (1970)
• The Burglars (1988)

References

• Landon, Brooks. "A Secret Too Good to Keep" and "Thomas Berger: Dedicated to the Novel," World & I, October 2003.
• Landon, Brooks. "The Radical Americanist," The Nation, August 20, 1977.
• Landon, Brooks. Thomas Berger, Twayne, 1989.
• Landon, Brooks. Understanding Thomas Berger, University of South Carolina Press, 2009.
• Madden, David (editor). Critical Essays on Thomas Berger, G.K. Hall, 1995.
• Malone, Michael. "American Literature's Little Big Man," The Nation, May 3, 1980.
• Ruud, Jay. "Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex: Galahad and Earthly Power," Critique, Winter 1984.
• Schickel, Richard. "Bitter Comedy," Commentary, July 1970.
• Schickel, Richard. "Interviewing Thomas Berger," The New York Times Book Review, April 6, 1980.
• Trachtenberg, Stanley. "Berger and Barth: the Comedy of 'Decomposition'," in Comic Relief, University of Illinois Press, 1978. Edited by Sarah B. Cohen.
• Turner, Frederick. "Melville and Thomas Berger: The Novelist as Cultural Anthropologist," Centennial Review, Winter 1969.
• Turner, Frederick. "The Second Decade of 'Little Big Man'," The Nation, August 20, 1977.
• Ward, Andrew. "Little Big Man's Man," interview in American Heritage, May/June 1999.

External links

• Appreciation in the Village Voice
• Killing Time with Thomas Berger
• Overlooked classics of American Literature: The Feud by Thomas Berger
• Return of Little Big Man article at Reason.com
• Thomas Berger at the Internet Movie Database
• Thomas Berger at Ohioana Authors
• Tom Perrotta Hails Suburban Sendup 'Neighbors'