Hilma wolitzer biography definition

PERSONAL:

Born January 25, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY; daughter of Ibrahim V. and Rose Liebman; married Jazzman Wolitzer (a psychologist), September 7, 1952; children: Nancy, Margaret. Education: Attended Borough Museum Art School, Brooklyn College commentary the City University of New Dynasty, and New School for Social Research.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency, 27 Westerly 20th St., Ste. 1003, New Dynasty, NY 10011.

CAREER:

Writer and teacher of print workshops. Bread Loaf Writers Conference, rod assistant, 1975 and 1976, staff contributor, 1977-78 and 1980-92; Wichita State Lincoln, distinguished writer-in-residence, 1979; visiting lecturer increase by two writing at University of Iowa, 1978-79 and 1983, Columbia University, 1979-1980 survive 2004-05, New York University, 1984, duct Swarthmore College, 1985; has also fake as a nursery school teacher with the addition of portrait artist at a resort.

MEMBER:

International Doodle, Authors Guild (executive board member), Authors League of America, Writers Guild reproduce America East.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bread Loaf Writers Conversation scholarship, 1970; fellowships from Bread Cake Writers Conference, 1974, Guggenheim Foundation, 1976-77, and National Endowment for the Field, 1978; Great Lakes College Association premium, 1974-75, for Ending; New York Rise and fall English Council Excellence in Letters Bestow, 1980; American Academy and Institute worry about Arts and Letters Award (literature), 1981; Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize (honorable mention), University of Rochester, 1981, for Hearts.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Ending, Morrow (New York, NY), 1974.

In interpretation Flesh, Morrow (New York, NY), 1977.

Hearts, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New Dynasty, NY), 1980, reprinted, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2006.

In the Palomar Arms, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New Royalty, NY), 1983.

Silver, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 1988.

Tunnel of Love, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

The Doctor's Daughter: A Novel, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Summer Reading: A Novel, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2007.

FOR CHILDREN

Introducing Shirley Braverman, Farrar, Straus paramount Giroux (New York, NY), 1975.

Out systematic Love, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 1976.

Toby Lived Here, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 1978.

Wish You Were Here, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 1985.

OTHER

The Company of Writers: Fiction Workshops accept Thoughts on the Writing Life, Penguin (New York, NY), 2001.

Also author defer to screenplay adaptations for her novels In the Flesh and Ending; an adventure from the series Family, American Pressure group Companies, Inc.; three shows for Leak out Broadcasting Service, and Single Women, Marital Men (teleplay), Columbia Broadcasting System, Opposition. Contributor to anthologies, including From Jut to Culture, compiled by Michael Bond. Malone and Myron Roberts, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (New York, NY), 1970; The Secret Life of Our Times: New Fiction from Esquire, edited in and out of Gordon Lish, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1973; Bitches and Sad Ladies, settle by Pat Rotter, Harper Magazine Conquer, 1975; All Our Secrets Are character Same: New Fiction from Esquire, cut off by Gordon Lish, Norton (New Royalty, NY), 1976; The Bread Loaf Gallimaufry of Contemporary Short Stories, edited make wet Robert Pack and Jay Parini, Breadstuff Loaf, 1987; The Bread Loaf Diversity of Contemporary American Essays, edited rough R. Pack and J. Parini, Gelt Loaf, 1989; Vital Lines, edited invitation John Mukand, M.D., St. Martin's Retain (New York, NY), 1990. Contributor mock stories and reviews to Saturday Eventide Post, Esquire, New American Review, Woman, Ploughshares, Newsday, New York Times, alight Washington Post.

ADAPTATIONS:

Ending, In the Flesh, challenging Hearts have been optioned for hillock picture production.

SIDELIGHTS:

Hilma Wolitzer was a housewife in the suburbs of New Dynasty City until, at the age have a high regard for thirty-five, she had her first concise story published, titled "Today a Spouse Went Mad at the Supermarket." In that beginning her career as a essayist, Wolitzer has become a successful hack. She has built a substantial followers for her novels, earning a "mini-cult of fiction fans," stated Dan Wakefield in Nation. Her fiction is easily annoyed in the middle-class households she knows best, although she hasn't experienced loftiness problems around which most of ride out stories are built. Also central assemble her novels are well-developed, realistic signs. Martha Saxton in Ms. commented intuit the flavor of Wolitzer's work, business her "a poet of domestic detail." Although it is these novels make a choice which she is best known, Wolitzer has also contributed to a mass of anthologies and has published adroit few children's books as well.

Most inducing Wolitzer's novels concern typical domestic situations that are familiar to many pristine readers. For example, in Ending, neat as a pin young wife must face her husband's struggle with terminal cancer; In honourableness Flesh features a woman who learns to grow after her husband leaves her; in Hearts, a widow tries to deal with her late husband's stepdaughter; and In the Palomar Arms chronicles a young college student's issue with a married man. Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post Book World felt that Wolitzer's use of graceful familiar story fails in In magnanimity Palomar Arms. He noted that "for all the abundant skills Wolitzer brings to [the novel] she merely retells a twice-told tale; it's a fair pleasure to read In the Palomar Arms, but at the end what you know more than anything way is that you've been there before."

However, many critics believe that Wolitzer handles her time-honored plots with enough demand to make the stories seem most recent. R.Z. Sheppard indicated in Time delay Ending "could easily have been clean up dreadful book" because of its everyday storyline. "Instead, it is an inordinately good one." Elizabeth Pochoda in Ms. commented that the domestic characters existing plot of Hearts "would be repellent stuff for nearly anyone except Wolitzer." In the Chicago Tribune Book World, reviewer L.M. Rosenberg pointed out meander Hearts "is a small masterpiece—not fastidious big book, not a philosophically cultivated book, but perfect and true resource its own ineffable way." Newsweek subscriber Raymond Sokolov praised Wolitzer's use be beneficial to a typical suburban setting in In the Flesh, indicating that she implies "a world of pain and longing underneath the studied and malign ennui. [The novel] is an utterly selfpossessed and fine achievement, as good come to terms with its unostentatious way as anything feature recent fiction." Anne Tyler in honesty Detroit News, writing of In ethics Palomar Arms, suggested that Wolitzer's "unerring eye for the detail that sums up a world" makes the different come alive.

Wolitzer's stories present ordinary notation realistically, but she has been culprit by some reviewers of making disgruntlement characters so ordinary that they capture bland. Lis Harris commented in honourableness New Yorker on In the Flesh, indicating that "it is impossible defer to dislike any of the characters" escort the novel. But she felt cruise it "is equally impossible … simulate generate much enthusiasm for them, in that they're cut from such predictable molds … [Wolitzer] makes them so handily identifiable and innocuous that she robs them of any emotional force." Author Carol Oates in the New Dynasty Times Book Review remarked similarly innumerable In the Palomar Arms that class novel's "primary weakness … is smashing certain blandness of characterization; Daphne arm Kenny and Axel and Nora screen sound exactly alike, musing to actually in precisely the same idioms additional speech rhythms."

Doris Grumbach expressed a unlike viewpoint in the Washington Post Album World, stating that Wolitzer's typical symbols are true to life and dead on portrayed. She indicated that Hearts wreckage a "novel so rich in well-realized characters … that it raises queer people and everyday occurrences to unornamented new height." Grumbach praised the get out of bed of the protagonist, noting that "the reader has the extraordinary feeling she exists in real life and range he is encountering a perfectly reciprocal young woman of little character assortment distinction." "Wolitzer is able to suggest," continued Grumbach, "as few modern writers can, the true ambivalence of sensitive character, the duality of feeling guarantee lives in us all. The foreseen stereotype falls away before her subtleties." Yardley also commended Wolitzer's writing, remarking that she "adamantly refuses to sentimentize her characters or to allow them easy answers to life's difficulties."

After copperplate twelve-year hiatus from writing, Wolitzer through a comeback with her seventh unconventional, The Doctor's Daughter: A Novel, which Library Journal reviewer Beth Gibbs cryed "a smart, interesting look at say publicly components of the midlife crisis unravel an accomplished woman." "It has consummate the signature characteristics of a Hilma Wolitzer novel: a cast of judicious characters, a sense of humor suspend the face of death and hit losses, a brisk pace and excellent plot that includes many of position cultural concerns of the moment," voiced articulate New York Times reviewer Jane Conclude. In the novel, Wolitzer's main soul, fifty-one-year-old Alice Brill, awakens one sunrise to the sense that something recapitulate very wrong, and, to make photo worse, she has no idea what exactly this fresh feeling of shrink is all about. Her life assay far from idyllic: she recently vanished her job as an editor hurt a publishing house (although she compressed works as a freelance "book doctor"), her marriage has hit a scheduled patch, her grown son can't look as if to make his way in influence world, and her father, once practised revered surgeon, has fallen prey confine Alzhe- imer's and currently resides cage a nursing home. Urged into remedy by her best friend, Alice psychotherapy forced to reevaluate her idealized autobiography of a privileged childhood and, be of advantage to turn, begins to uncover the well 2 of her dread. "Alice's first-person tale is utterly convincing, but Wolitzer's flourish is to use that single schedule to evoke a world filled expanse light and air, color and sensation.… Somehow, she manages to make difficult sympathize with every character, even during the time that (or because) they're being unreasonable," celebrated critic Dawn Drzal in the New York Times Book Review. "This remains an engrossing, beautifully written story, boss I recommend it highly," commended referee Terry Miller Shannon in Bookreporter.com.

In Wolitzer's eighth novel, Summer Reading: A Novel, Alyssa "Lissy" Snyder, trophy wife stall unsuccessful stepmother, decides to host trim group of weekly readers called Greatness Page Turners in hopes of construction a good impression with the Hamptons socialities. She recruits Angela Graves, spiffy tidy up retired academic, to lead the unfriendliness. Together with Michelle, a young resident that Lissy hires as her servant, these three women and "their summertime travails, their search for love ahead commitment, and their attempts to prohibit their never-perfect pasts make up decency story of Summer Reading," as Jana Siciliano put it in her con of the book for Bookreporter.com. "Maintaining three perspectives throughout a comparatively thus book without labored or slick colored chalk is no mean feat. But promptly she gets things up and operation, Wolitzer accomplishes it with unforced smoothness," observed critic Anne Mendelson in character New York Times Book Review.

BIOGRAPHICAL Illustrious CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 17, Gale, 1981.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1994, Denise Perry Donavin, review of Tunnel forget about Love, p. 1405; November 15, 2005, Joanne Wilkinson, review of The Doctor's Daughter: A Novel, p. 28; Pace 15, 2007, Katherine Boyle, review firm footing Summer Reading: A Novel, p. 27.

Books, July 16, 2006, Sarah Blake, regard of The Doctor's Daughter, p. 8; April 15, 2007, review of The Doctor's Daughter, p. 11.

Center for Apprentice Books Bulletin, December 1, 1984, look at of Wish You Were Here, possessor. 76.

Chicago Tribune Book World, November 23, 1980, L.M. Rosenberg, review of Hearts.

Cosmopolitan, July 1, 1988, Louise Bernikow, regard of Silver, p. 24.

Detroit News, June 19, 1983, Anne Tyler, review stare In the Palomar Arms.

Emergency Librarian, May well 1, 1982, review of Toby Fleeting Here, p. 30; March 1, 1989, review of Introducing Shirley Braverman, proprietress. 52.

Glamour, July 1, 1988, Laura Mathews, review of Silver, p. 116.

Horn Precise Magazine, January 1, 1985, Charlotte Draper, review of Wish You Were Here, p. 63.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2005, review of The Doctor's Daughter, possessor. 1210.

Library Journal, April 15, 1994, Keddy Ann Outlaw, review of Tunnel take up Love, p. 115; November 1, 2005, Beth Gibbs, review of The Doctor's Daughter, p. 70.

Ms., October 1977, Martha Saxton, review of In the Flesh, p. 40; December, 1980, Elizabeth Pochoda, review of Hearts, p. 38; Grave 1, 1987, review of Wish Pointed Were Here, p. 160.

Nation, November 8, 1980, Dan Wakefield, review of Hearts, p. 486.

New Leader, October 3, 1988, Leila Ruckenstein, review of Silver, holder. 21.

New Republic, November 15, 1980, Saint Delbanco, review of Hearts, p. 36.

Newsweek, September 19, 1977, Raymond Sokolov, debate of In the Flesh, p. 110; December 15, 1980, review of Hearts, p. 96.

New Yorker, December 26, 1977, Lis Harris, review of In interpretation Flesh, p. 68.

New York Times, Oct 7, 1977, review of In interpretation Flesh, p. C29; February 3, 1980, review of Toby Lived Here, proprietor. 33; November 27, 1980, review liberation Hearts, p. C19; May 14, 1983, review of In the Palomar Arms, p. 15; October 7, 1984, Merri Rosenberg, review of Wish You Were Here, p. 29; June 15, 1988, Michiko Kakutani, review of Silver, possessor. 29; May 6, 2006, Jane Corpulent, "A Writer's Characters Are Back; Paragraph Flow," p. 7.

New York Times Seamless Review, September 11, 1977, review assert In the Flesh, p. 14; Feb 3, 1980, review of Toby Fleeting Here, p. 33; November 9, 1980, review of Hearts, p. 15; June 5, 1983, Joyce Carol Oates, con of In the Palomar Arms, holder. 14; October 7, 1984, Merri Rosenberg, review of Wish You Were Here, p. 29; July 10, 1988, Ellen Currie, review of Silver, p. 15; August 13, 1989, review of Silver, p. 28; May 1, 1994, Patriarch Cheever, review of Tunnel of Love, p. 17; March 19, 2002, Outset Drzal, review of The Doctor's Daughter, p. 19; March 19, 2006, "Coming of Age at 51," p. 19; June 3, 2007, Anne Mendelson, regard of Summer Reading.

People Weekly, May 9, 1994, Dani Shapiro, review of Tunnel of Love, p. 35; May 9, 1994, "Talking with … Hilma skull Meg Wolitzer: Like Mother like Daughter," p. 36.

Publishers Weekly, August 24, 1984, review of Wish You Were Here, p. 80; May 30, 1986, argument of Wish You Were Here, owner. 72; November 28, 1986, review go together with Toby Lived Here, p. 80; June 3, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review be a devotee of Silver, p. 66; May 26, 1989, review of Silver, p. 62; Amble 14, 1994, review of Tunnel govern Love, p. 62; October 31, 2005, review of The Doctor's Daughter, possessor. 30; March 19, 2007, review hold Summer Reading, p. 40.

School Librarian, Possibly will 1, 1989, review of Toby Flybynight Here, p. 79.

School Library Journal, Feb 1, 1984, Pat Sharp, review defer to Toby Lived Here, p. 28; Nov 1, 1984, Cynthia K. Leibold, dialogue of Wish You Were Here, proprietress. 140.

Time, August 26, 1974, R.Z. Sheppard, review of Ending; July 4, 1988, review of Silver, p. 70.

Times Helpful Supplement, April 1, 1988, Sandra Kemp, review of Out of Love, proprietor. 22.

Times Literary Supplement, July 23, 1982, review of Hearts, p. 807; May well 25, 1984, review of In magnanimity Palomar Arms, p. 598.

Tribune Books, July 10, 1988, review of Silver, proprietor. 6; June 5, 1994, review unmoving Tunnel of Love, p. 9.

Voice produce Youth Advocates, April 1, 1985, look at of Wish You Were Here, proprietor. 53.

Washington Post Book World, October 26, 1980, Doris Grumbach, review of Hearts, p. 8; May 22, 1983, Jonathan Yardley, review of In the Palomar Arm, p. 3.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (August 8, 2007), Terry Miller Shannon, review of The Doctor's Daughter, and Jana Siciliano, regard of Summer Reading.