Tod Wodicka

Photo by Michael Lionstar

Tod Wodicka (born May 30, 1976) is an American author who grew up in Queensbury, New York, and lived for twenty years in Europe, including Manchester, England; Prague; Moscow; and Berlin. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

He graduated from the University of Manchester in the UK.

Work

Novels

All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

His critically acclaimed first novel, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well has been translated into German, Spanish and Dutch. The novel was short-listed for the 2008 Believer Book Award. The novel was published by Pantheon Books (US) and Jonathan Cape (UK); and Vintage Books paperback (US & UK).

All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well tells the story of Burt Hecker, a medieval re-enactor from upstate New York who travels to Prague to find his estranged son Tristan. The book is a darkly comic story about Burt's devotion to another time and his doomed attempts at coming to terms with his own history.

The Household Spirit

His second novel, The Household Spirit, was published by Pantheon Books (US) and Jonathan Cape (UK) in June 2015. The Household Spirit is about the curious friendship between Howie Jeffries, a shy, 50-year-old recluse and Emily Phane, an irreverent young woman who suffers from horrific sleep paralysis attacks. It takes place in Queens Falls, the same fictional upstate New York town Wodicka wrote about in All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. The novel was awarded a Kirkus Star and was critically acclaimed in The New Yorker, The Financial Times, Esquire Magazine, The Sunday Times, Artforum, Tank Magazine and The Independent.

Other Work

Tod Wodicka's essays, criticism and fiction has appeared in The Guardian, Granta, Tank (magazine), New Statesman, South as a State of Mind, AnOther Magazine, The National, Art Papers, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. He wrote the afterward to David Tibet of Current 93's art book, Some Gnostic Cartoons. He has been a resident at Yaddo; a literary fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany; and a writer in residence at Het beschrijf at Passa Porta in Belgium.

Bibliography

• Wodicka, Tod (2008). All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-375-42473-1. OCLC 124165798.

• Wodicka, Tod (2015). The Household Spirit. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0307377050.

External links

Selected Essays

• Tod Wodicka (November 2016). "168 Hours in Northern Michigan". Tank Magazine. (on Travel Writing & the End of the World)
• Tod Wodicka (24 Feb 2016). "I Grew up in a Gay Beach Utopia". i.d.vice. (on growing up in Fire Island Pines, New York and seeing all kinds of interesting stuff)
• Tod Wodicka (November 2015). "Not So Nice: On Travel Writing & Vengeance in the Côte d'Azur". Tank Magazine. (on Travel Writing & Vengeance & Elton John's house)
• Tod Wodicka (13 Nov 2015). "Tips For an Eight-Year-Old Me". i.d.vice. (on being very poor and sad in a very nice room in castle in Germany: the Akademie Schloss Solitude)
• Tod Wodicka (10 June 2015). "Book Notes: Playlist for "The Household Spirit"". large hearted boy. (a musical playlist for "The Household Spirit")
• Tod Wodicka (4 October 2012). "The Metaphoreign Body". Granta. (on almost dying from a pimple in a Czech hospital)
• Tod Wodicka (October 2012). "Comment is Free". Tank Magazine. (On exploring the comments section of adult websites)
• Tod Wodicka (7 November 2011). "The Novel as a Big Fleshy Thing: Why Peter Nadas' Parallel Stories Has More Soul Than Your Dog". Untitled Books. (on Péter Nádas' novel Parallel Stories)
• Tod Wodicka (25 April 2009). "Papa, You're My Best Friend". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |pmd= (help) (on being trapped in Germany, his young son and Brideshead Revisited)
• Tod Wodicka (14 July 2007). "Goodbye America". New Statesman. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |pmd= (help) (on Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman novels)
• Tod Wodicka (14 July 2007). "Dad's New Best Friend". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |pmd= (help) (on pirates, mustaches and discovering his father's homosexuality)

Radio

• BBC Radio 3 The Essay "The Reluctant Shaman". (on suffering from Sleep Paralysis and possibly having magical powers and/or mental illness)
• WAMC Northeast Public Radio (Interview about the novel, "The Household Spirit")
• BBC World Service - Outlook- radio program (a reading by and interview with Tod Wodicka)
• BBC Radio 4 Short Story "Enzo". (on dark alcoholic fun in Albany, New York airport hotels)

Interviews

• BBC World Service
• WAMC Northeast Public Radio
• ExBerliner 2015
• Wondering Sound
• Der Freitag (Interview in German.)
• ExBerliner 2011
• Das Fragebuch / The Question Book

Reviews of All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

• Nicholas Lezard (28 June 2008). "Sympathy for the outsider" (book review). The Guardian. (You could be forgiven for thinking Wodicka has made the Lemkos up. He hasn't.)
• FT.com
• Lichtig, Toby (26 July 2007). "Let's get medieval". New Statesman.
• "All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well". The New Yorker Books Briefly Noted. 28 January 2008.
• Janet Maslin (24 January 2008). "Mead-Drinking, Gruel-Eating, Sandal-Wearing, Reality-Fleeing Family Guy". New York Times.

Reviews of The Household Spirit

• The New Yorker
• The Independent (Wodicka uses two characters’ incompatibility to his advantage, creating a dialogue of disorientation and a plot which slips seamlessly between points of view.)
• Kirkus Reviews (Starred: Wodicka’s fluid, expressive prose—dotted with quotable observations often as odd as his players—serves well his weaving of such a convincing, unexpected story from eccentricity, pain, and need.)
• The Sunday Times
• Financial Times