Thomas Berger (novelist)

Thomas Louis Berger (born July 20, 1924) is an American novelist.

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 was in Europe with the United States Army and then studied at the University of Cincinnati, and at Columbia University. He worked as a librarian and a journalist before publishing his first novel, Crazy in Berlin, in 1958. Berger may be best known for the movie made from his novel Little Big Man, which starred Dustin Hoffman. His 1980 novel, Neighbors, was also made into a film, Neighbors, starring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarty. 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.

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, Understanding Thomas Berger, University of South Carolina Press, 2009.
• 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
• Tom Perrotta Hails Suburban Sendup 'Neighbors'