Bibliography
See her autobiographical Herself (1972), Kissing Cousins (1988), and Tattoo for a Slave (2004); K. Snodgrass, The Fiction of Hortense Calisher (1993).
Hortense Calisher
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Hortense Calisher |
Calisher, Hortense (kăl'ĭshər), 1911-2009, American author, b. New York City, grad. Barnard College, 1932. Her novels are difficult to categorize, blending deft character analysis with complex story lines. Written in careful, dense, elliptial, yet constantly fresh prose, they have been compared to works by Dickens and James. She frequently wrote about families and the failures of love and communication that wind through their generations. Among her novels are False Entry (1961), The New Yorkers (1969), Queenie (1971), Mysteries of Motion (1982), In the Palace of the Movie King (1993), and Sunday Jews (2002). In all, Calisher wrote more than 20 books. Her collected short stories appeared in 1975 (another story collection followed a decade later), and her collected novellas were published in 1997. She taught at several colleges and universities.
| Works: Works by Hortense Calisher |
(b. 1911)
| 1951 | In the Absence of Angels. Calisher's first book is a story collection that includes the first of her Hester works, autobiographically based coming-of-age stories, as well as the critically acclaimed story "In Greenwich There Are Many Graveled Walks." A New York City native, Calisher would publish short stories (Collected Stories, 1975), novellas (The Novellas of Hortense Calisher, 1997), and novels. |
| 1962 | Tales from the Mirror. After publishing a first novel, False Entry (1961), Calisher issues her second story collection, which includes her most anthologized work, "The Scream on Fifty-Seventh Street." It is followed by her most conventional novel, Textures of Life (1963), about newlyweds adjusting to the routine of everyday life. |
| 1965 | Journal from Ellipsia. Calisher departs from her characteristic realistic examination of commonplace life with a science fiction fantasy about life in a perfect world that has dispensed with feelings and gender differences. |
| 1969 | The New Yorkers. One of Calisher's major works gives the background of her recurring character Ruth Mannix. The book is praised for its knowing look at New York City life. |
| 1971 | Queenie. Described as a female Portnoy, the novel's protagonist narrates adventures that reflect the social disruptions of the 1960s. Eagle Eye (1973) serves as a kind of companion novel, viewing the decade from the perspective of a computer whiz. |
| 1977 | On Keeping Women. In Calisher's novel, a thirty-seven-year-old mother of four ponders her identity as a woman in a novel selected by the New York Times as one of the most noteworthy titles of 1977, described as "always skillful and brilliant in its effects." |
| Wikipedia: Hortense Calisher |
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009) |
| 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 |
| Writing period | 1951 - 2004 |
| Official website | |
Hortense Calisher (December 20, 1911 – January 13, 2009) was an American writer of fiction.
Contents |
Biography
Personal life
Born in New York City, New York and a graduate of Hunter College High School (1928) and Barnard College (1932), Calisher was the daughter of a young German immigrant and an older father from a Southern family she described as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull, and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time".[1]
She died at the age of 97 on 13 January 2009 in Manhattan.[2]
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. She was definitely at odds with the prevailing writing style of minimalism that characterized fiction writing in the 1970s and 1980s and that emphasized a sparse, non-romantic style with no room for expressionism or romanticism. As an anti-minimalist, Calisher was admired for her elliptical style in which more is hinted at than stated, and she was also praised as a social realist and critic in the vein of Honore Balzac and Edith Wharton.
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 and has won an O. Henry Award (for "The Night Club in the Woods") and the 1986 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize (for The Bobby Soxer) as well as being awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in 1952 and 1955.[3]
Bibliography
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)
Non-fiction
- Herself (autobiography, 1972)
- Tattoo for a Slave (memoir, 2004)
References
- ^ Calisher, Hortense. Tattoo for a Slave. Orlando: Harcourt, 2004.
- ^ Noble, Holcomb B. 15 January 2009. Hortense Calisher, Author, Dies at 97, The New York Times.
- ^ Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 1952 Fellows Page
External links
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 | Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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Mentioned in
- Discovery (literature)
- The Hollow Boy (1989 Drama Film)
- American literature (literature, United States)
- Hortense (given name)
- Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow
- 1951 (chronology)
- Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize
- 55 Short Stories from the New Yorker
- Arbor House
- Little, Brown and Company
- List of members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Department of Literature
- The Best American Short Stories
- Ambassador Book Award
- List of Jewish American authors
