Paul Robert Spike is an American author, editor and journalist. He is best-known as the author of the 1973 memoir Photographs of My Father.
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Education and background
Spike grew up in New York's Greenwich Village; however, he has resided in Europe—primarily London—most of his life. He was educated at Columbia College, where he served as editor of the Columbia Review in 1970, and at St. Catherine's College, Oxford.
Career
Books
Spike is the author of five books. His memoir Photographs of My Father (Knopf, 1973) is the most widely known; an autobiographical account of the murder of his father, civil rights leader Rev. Robert W. Spike, the book received exceptional praise and was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of its "Ten Best Books of The Year."
His four other work include a collection of short stories, two political thrillers, and the cult novelization of Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky. (Spike composed under the pseudonym "Ralph Hoover.")
Journalism
Spike has written about politics, literature, film, style, travel and food for a wide range of U.K. newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Evening Standard, 'Times Literary Supplement, GQ, Condé Nast Traveler and Vogue, where he is a Contributing Editor. He launched the Pandora column in the Independent newspaper in 1998.
In 1997, Spike became the first American ever to be appointed Editor of the 150 year-old British humour magazine Punch which he re-launched as a weekly investigative and satirical gadfly, but soon left the magazine, after falling out with its controversial owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
Honors
Spike has received the Paris Review Humor Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Danforth Foundation grant.
Personal
Spike has a son and a daughter by author Maureen Freely, and a son by editor Alexandra Shulman, both former wives.
Bibliography
- Bad News (short fiction), Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1971.
- Photographs of My Father (autobiography), Knopf, 1973.
- Jabberwocky (as “Ralph Hoover”), Pan Books, 1976.
- The Night Letter (novel), GP Putnams, 1978.
- Last Rites (novel), New American Library, 1980.
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