- Leonard Michaels
Leonard Michaels (
January 2 ,1933 -May 10 ,2003 ) was an Americanwriter of short stories,novel s, andessay s. He was born inNew York City toJewish parents; his father was born inPoland . He went to college and earned his B.A. fromNew York University and went on to acquire a M.A. as well as aPh.D. in English Literature from theUniversity of Michigan , before spending most of his adult life inBerkeley, California . "Going Places", his first book of short stories, made his reputation as one of the most brilliant of that era's fiction writers; the stories are urban, funny, and written in a private, hectic diction that gives them a remarkable edge. The follow-up, coming six years later (Michaels was perhaps not prolific enough to build a widely popular career), was "I Would Have Saved Them If I Could", a collection as strong as the first."The Men's Club", Michaels' first novel, is a story-like, relatively short comedic work that simultaneously attacks and celebrates the absurdities of men as they gather in a kind of urban support group. In 1986, the novel was made into a popular film, directed by Peter Medak, with the screenplay by Michaels, and starring Roy Scheider, Harvey Keitel, Stockard Channing and Frank Langella.
"Sylvia" is a fictionalized memoir of Michael's first wife, Sylvia Bloch, who committed suicide.
Michaels was a professor of English at the
University of California, Berkeley .His son
Jesse Michaels was the vocalist in the seminal undergroundpunk rock band Operation Ivy.elected publications
* "Going Places" (, ISBN 0-374-16496-7)
* "I Would Have Saved Them If I Could" (, ISBN 0-374-17411-3)
* "The Men's Club" (, ISBN 0-374-20782-8) (filmed in 1986)
* "Shuffle" (, ISBN 0-374-26349-3)
* "Sylvia" (, ISBN 1-56279-029-3)
* "Time Out of Mind" (, ISBN 1-57322-819-2)
* "A Girl With a Monkey: New and Selected Stories" (, ISBN 1-56279-120-6)
* "The Collected Stories " (, ISBN 0-37412-654-2)External links
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070709/lopate The Improbable Moralist] Both an appreciation of his art and review of "The Collected Stories" by
Phillip Lopate ; published inThe Nation on-line June 21, 2007 (July 9, 2007 issue)
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/01/RVGLQQJD1G1.DTL&type=books "Leonard Michaels -- let us not forget him"] review of "The Collected Stories", by Paul Wilner. This piece appeared July 1, 2007 at [http://www.sfgate.com/ SF Gate.com] . The review also extends into a backlog of reflection about Michaels' "Sylvia" and an essay on Michaels' called "Difficult Friends" inWendy Lesser 's "Room For Doubt".
* [http://brooklynrail.org/2007/7/books/to-live-in-a-culture To Live in a Culture: Leonard Michaels' "Sylvia" and "The Collected Stories"] piece by Nora Griffin at [http://brooklynrail.org/ The Brooklyn Rail]
* [http://harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000369 Interview: Wyatt Mason on Leonard Michaels] at [http://www.harpers.org Harper's]
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