Frederic Tuten

Infobox Writer
name = Frederic Tuten


imagesize =
caption =
pseudonym =
birthdate = 1936 (age #expr:CURRENTYEAR-1937)
birthplace = The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Novelist, short story writer and essayist
nationality = USA
period = 1964–present
genre =
subject =
movement =
influences =
influenced =


website =

Frederic Tuten (born 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He has written five novels – "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March" (1971), "Tallien: A Brief Romance" (1988), "Tintin in the New World: A Romance" (1993), "Van Gogh's Bad Café" (1997) and "The Green Hour" (2002) – as well as short stories and essays, many of the latter being about contemporary art.

Biography

Born in 1936 [cite web|title=Tuten, Frederic|url=http://www.harpers.org/subjects/FredericTuten|publisher="Harper's Magazine"|accessdate=2007-09-23] in The Bronx, New York City, New York, in the USA, Tuten is the son of a Sicilian mother and a French-Huguenot father. His father left their family when Tuten was young, and though they were never close, his father eventually was a part of Tuten's life before his death.

Tuten received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York. After studying pre-Columbian art history at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and travelling through South America writing on Brazilian cinema, he earned a Ph.D. in 19th-century American literature from New York University, concentrating on Melville, Whitman, and James Fenimore Cooper, and taught literature and American cinema in France at the .cite web|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Self Portrait with Icebergs|url=http://www.kgbbar.com/lit/mixed_media/self_portrait_w.html|publisher=KGBBarLit|year=2005|accessdate=2007-06-15]

Tuten spent 15 years heading the graduate program in creative writing at the City College of New York, which he co-founded. In that capacity, he championed the work of students Walter Mosley, Oscar Hijuelos, Aurelie Sheehan, Salar Abdoh, and many others. He also teaches classes on experimental writing at The New School. He is on the board of advisors for "Guernica Magazine" and executive editor of "Smyles & Fish". Tuten's short fiction has appeared in "Conjunctions", "Fence", "Fiction", "Granta", "The New Review of Literature", and "Tri-Quarterly". In 1973, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing and in 2001 was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Tuten is also a well-known figure within the art world. He has worked as an art and film critic in various venues and often incorporates allusions to these fields in his fiction as well. Tuten was a close personal friend of Roy Lichtenstein and published several essays on his work, as well as catalogue essays for many other artists including John Baldessari, Eric Fischl, R.B. Kitaj, and David Salle.

Tuten currently resides in New York City's East Village.

Works

Novels

Tuten's first novel, "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March" (1971), [cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=The Adventures of Mao on the Long March|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=Citadel Press|year=1971|isbn=0806502487 Reprinted as cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=The Adventures of Mao on the Long March|location=New York, N.Y.; London, England|publisher=Marion Boyars|year=1977|isbn=0714530212; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=The Adventures of Mao on the Long March|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=New Directions Classic|year=2005|isbn=0811216322] a fictionalized account of Chairman Mao's rise to power, is highly experimental in nature. It contains Faulkneresque changes in narrative and lengthy fictional conversations with Mao that read like journalistic interviews. The story first appeared in 1969 in a 39-page condensed form in the magazine "Artist Slain". The novel in its entirety was subsequently published by Citadel Press in 1971, and re-released in 2005 by New Directions.

The cover of "Mao" features original artwork by painter Roy Lichtenstein. This is fitting for Tuten whom, in life as in his novels, has a keen interest in artistic criticism (particularly with regard to painting). Tuten himself was actually used as a model for the drawing, which Lichtenstein altered accordingly to resemble Mao.

His next book, "Tallien" (1988), [cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tallien : A Brief Romance|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux|year=1988|isbn=0374272492 Reprinted as cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tallien : A Brief Romance|location= [S.l.] |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=1989|isbn=0297793179; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tallien : A Brief Romance|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=Marion Boyars|year=1995|isbn=0714529907; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tallien : A Brief Romance|location=Baltimore, Md.|publisher=Black Classics Press|year=2005|isbn=1580730353 (pbk.)] is also an interpretive examination of an historical figure, though one not nearly as well known as Mao. Jean Lambert Tallien was a high-ranking figure in the French Revolution, serving as the president of the Constitutional Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Like Mao, Tallien was a member of the common classes who rose to the upper crust of the revolutionary ranks.

Tuten tells the story of Tallien's courtship and marriage to Therese, a condemned member of the French aristocracy. When eyebrows are raised by Tallien's show of clemency, Tuten describes in minute organizational detail the sometimes-banal and sometimes-bloody bureaucratic struggle that ensues. The narrative is intercut with the author's account of his own father's life, demonstrating an illiquid literary mechanism similar to that used in "The Adventures of Mao".

"Tintin in the New World" (1993) [cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tintin in the New World : A Romance|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=W. Morrow|year=1993|isbn=0688123155; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tintin in the New World : A Romance|location=London|publisher=Marion Boyars|year=1993|isbn=0714529788 Reprinted as cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tintin in the New World : A Romance|edition=1st Riverhead ed.|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=Riverhead Books|year=1996|isbn=1573225290; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Tintin in the New World : A Romance|location=Baltimore, Md.|publisher=Black Classics Press|year=2005|isbn=1580730337] is perhaps Tuten's best known and most critically acclaimed work. The novel's unlikely protagonist is Tintin, the cartoon boy detective created by Belgian comic artist Georges Remi, better known as Hergé. Tuten transplants Tintin from his comic book confines into a fleshed out, realistic world with all its wicked, grave and abstruse trappings. Appreciation of the book is enhanced by an acquaintance with Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain", the characters of which it uses.

The cover of the novel, like "The Adventures of Mao", features a drawing by Roy Lichtenstein, which was created expressly for the novel. Again Lichtenstein makes use of the benday dot technique to depict Tintin and his dog Snowy in a near-miss with a would-be assassin's knife. Behind Tintin hangs the painting "Dance (I)" by Henri Matisse, which in reality is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Curiously, Roy Lichtenstein's own rendering of "Dance", "sans" Tintin, hangs in the same museum.

The book went through several print runs, both in the USA and the UK (in Britain, the novel was published by Marion Boyars Publishers, and later Minerva). The novel was also translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Catalan. In 2005, it was re-released by Black Classics Press in the USA, with an introduction by Paul LaFarge. All editions of the book feature the "Interior with Painting of Tintin" jacket illustration created by Lichtenstein.

Though "Tintin in the New World" was received well by critics, some fans of the original Tintin comic were disappointed and, at worst, outraged; they did not consider it to be canonical. There was sometimes an expectation that the book would simply pick up where Hergé had left off, and that the direction taken by Tuten had sullied Tintin's image. Other Tintin fans, however, enjoyed the book, and viewed it not as an extension of Hergé's books but an entirely different representation of Tintin.

Like "Mao" and "Tallien", Tuten's next novel, "Van Gogh's Bad Café" (1997), [cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=W. Morrow|year=1997|isbn=0688151345; cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story|location=London|publisher=Marion Boyars|year=1997|isbn=0714530301 Reprinted as cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story|location=Baltimore, Md.|publisher=Black Classics Press|year=2005|isbn=1580730345 (pbk.)] offers an imagined glimpse into the psyche of a historical character, Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The book is also similar to "Mao" in that the time and place of action and the narrator are inconsistent throughout and change without warning. "Van Gogh's Bad Café" explores the themes of love and addiction.

Tuten's most recent novel, "The Green Hour" (2002), [cite book|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=The Green Hour|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co.|year=2002|isbn=0393051056] is in many ways a departure from the others. The setting is the present day, and the characters are not borrowed from history. Further, it lacks much of the impertinent humor and ethereal feel of his previous works. The story recounts the 30-year love affair between an academic and a spiritual vagabond.

Several of Frederic Tuten's novels and short stories feature a cat named Nicolino.

[http://smylesandfish.com/lounge/the_collagists.php "The Collagists"]

In 2007 Tuten was asked by literary website "Smyles and Fish", along with lifelong friend Jerome Charyn, to write an essay about their former colleague and friend Donald Barthelme. The project evolved into a lengthy article, which offers a sort of collage of these three writers and the world of their influences. The work is divided into three parts - an introductory essay on the project by editor-in-chief Iris Smyles, Charyn's essay on Barthelme, and Tuten's piece "My Autobiography: Portable with Images", into which are embedded illustrations by Max Ernst and quotes from Barthelme's works. ["The Collagists" "Smyles & Fish", available online May 2008. [http://smylesandfish.com/lounge/the_collagists.php] ]

hort stories

* "My Autobiography : Portable, with Commentary", "Conjunctions" 40, Spring 2003.
* "In the Borghese Gardens," "The New Review of Literature" Vol. 1, October 2003.
* "The Park Near Marienbad", "Conjunctions" 42, Spring 2004.
* "Voyagers", "Conjunctions" 44, Spring 2005.
* "The Park in Winter," "Fence" Vol.8, Summer 2005.
* " [http://www.granta.com/Magazine/91 The Ship at Anchor] ", Granta 91, September 2005.

Tuten is currently working on a series of short stories with titles beginning "Self Portrait with..." Some have already been published in various venues:

* " [http://www.kgbbar.com/lit/mixed_media/self_portrait_w.html Self Portrait with Icebergs] ", "KGB Bar Lit", 2005.
* "Self Portrait with Cheese", "Roy Lichtenstein: Conversations with Surrealism, Exhibition Catalogue: Mitchell-Innes & Nash, October 2005; reprinted in "Smyles & Fish" 1, Fall 2006.
* "Self Portrait with Beach", "Mona Kuhn : Evidence", 2007 ISBN 3865213723; reprinted in "Conjunctions" 48, Spring 2007, and in "Harper's", August 2007;
* "Self Portrait with Sicily," "Conjunctions", Spring 2008.

Essays

* "Trova." "Arts Mag.", XLIII (Dec. 1968 – Jan. 1969), 32–33.
* "Roy Lichtenstein Bronze Sculpture 1976–1989." 65 Thompson Street, 1989.
* [http://www.archipelago.org/vol1-1/tuten.htm "Twenty-Five Years After : "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March"."] Archipelago, 1997.
* "Still Replying to Grandma's Persistent 'And Then?'" Writers on Writing.
* [http://www.guernicamag.com/guest_editors/fiction/06/12/ Frederic Tuten / December Guest Editor] . "Guernica Magazine", 2006. Frederic Tuten comments on fiction from four selected writers whose work he edited for "Guernica Magazine".

Other writings

Tuten has contributed to the following books:

* "R.B. Kitaj Pictures." Marlborough Gallery, 1974.
* "Roy Lichtenstein: Water Lilies." Richard Gray Gallery, 1992.
* "David Salle." Gagosian Gallery, 1999.
* "Roy Lichtenstein: Early Black and White Paintings." Gagosian Gallery, 2002.
* "Eric Fischl: Paintings And Drawings 1979-2001." Hatje Cantz, 2003. ISBN 3775713794
* "John Baldessari." Ecole normale supérieure des beaux-arts, 2005. ISBN 2840562006
* "Roy Lichtenstein: Conversations With Surrealism." Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 2006. ISBN 0974960748

Notes

Further reading

Articles

*citation|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=David Salle : At the Edges|journal=Art in America|volume=85|issue=9|pages=78|date=1997|publisher=F.F. Sherman.
*cite web|last=Tuten|first=Frederic|title=An Excerpt from "Tintin in the New World"|url=http://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/57/an_excerpt_from_tintin_in_the/|publisher="Guernica Magazine"|month=May | year=2005|accessdate=2007-06-15

Books

*cite book|title=An Inventory of the Literary Archive of Frederic Tuten|location= [Cambridge, Mass.] |publisher=Lame Duck Books|year= [2005?]

*cite book|title=Les aventures de Mao en Amérique|location=Véronique Béghain [Paris] |publisher=Presses Universitaires de France|year= [2008]

Persondata
NAME = Tuten, Frederic
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = American novelist, short story writer and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH = 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH = The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =