- Ronald Verlin Cassill
Infobox Writer
name = Ronald Verlin Cassill
caption =
birthdate =May 17 ,1919
birthplace =Cedar Falls, Iowa |
deathdate = death date and age|2002|3|25|1919|5|17
deathplace =Providence, Rhode Island
occupation =novelist ,short story writer, editor, painter, lithographer
genre = Fiction
movement =
nationality =United States
influences =Benjamin Constant ,D. H. Lawrence ,Gustave Flaubert ,Henry James ,James Joyce
influenced =
website =Ronald Verlin Cassill, usually called R. V. Cassill, (
May 17 ,1919 –March 25 ,2002 ) was a prolific Americannovelist ,short story writer, reviewer, editor, painter, and lithographer.Biography
Born in 1919 in
Cedar Falls, Iowa , Cassill earned aB.A. inart at TheUniversity of Iowa in 1939 where he was a member of thePhi Beta Kappa Society. He also earned his M.A. at Iowa in 1947. Between earning his B.A. and M.A., Cassill served in theUnited States Army , from 1942 to 1946 where he served in the south Pacific and attained the rank ofLieutenant . He briefly served as an instructor at The University of Iowa before attending theSorbonne for a year as aFulbright Fellow beginning in 1952. Cassill worked as an editor for the Western Review of Iowa City from 1951 to 1952,Collier's Encyclopedia from 1953 to 1954, and Dude and Gent in 1958. He became a lecturer at bothColumbia University and theNew School for Social Research in 1957 until he returned to the University of Iowa in the same capacity in 1960. His next position was as writer-in-residence atPurdue University from 1965 to 1966. Cassill was appointed Associate Professor atBrown University in 1966 and then to Professor of English in 1972 where he remained until his retired from teaching as Professoremeritus in 1983. In addition to his teaching Cassill served as U.S. Information Service lecturer inEurope from 1975 to 1976. Cassill is also a painter andlithographer , mounting exhibitions in Chicago in 1946 and 1948 as well as inNew York in 1970.Cassill's papers are archived at the Mugar Memorial Library at
Boston University .Awards
Cassill received the
Atlantic Monthly 's "Firsts" prize for a short story in 1947. He was given a Rockefeller grant in 1954 and aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1968.Work
Cassill's extremely prolific career and wide array of interests make it difficult to summarize the thematic nature and concerns of his work. His stories and novels concern bucolic life in the midwest, the life of the artist or academic, and at times extend into
autobiography . A preoccupation with the fates of couples, in alienation and union, is exhibited in much of his fiction, as is the warring of emotional and rational impulses in individuals and pairs. A strong visual identification is intrinsic in his prose, likely due to his training as a visual artist. His most famous novels were "Doctor Cobb's Game " and "Clem Anderson" but the sheer breadth of his writing and his pervasive influence as a teacher have secured Cassill's legacy in modern fiction.Bibliography
Novels
*"The Eagle on the Coin" (1950)
*"Dorimtory Women" (1953)
*"The Left Bank of Desire" (1955) (with Eric Protter)
*"A Taste of Sin" (1955)
*"The Hungering Shame" (1956)
*"The Wound of Love" (1956)
*"An Affair to Remember" (1957) (as Owen Aherne)
*"Naked Morning" (1957)
*"Man on Fire" (1957) (as Owen Aherne)
*"The Buccaneer" (1958)
*"Lustful Summer" (1958)
*"The Tempest" (1959)
*"The Wife Next Door" (1960)
*"Clem Anderson" (1960)
*"My Sister's Keeper" (1961)
*"Night School" (1961)
*"Nurses' Quarters" (1962)
*"Pretty Leslie" (1963)
*"The President" (1964)
*"La Vie Passionée of Rodney Buckthorne: A Tale of the Great American's Last Rally and Curious Death" (1968)
*"Doctor Cobb's Game" (1969)
*"The Goss Women" (1974)
*"Hoyt's Child" (1976)
*"Labors of Love" (1980)
*"Flame" (1980)
*"After Goliath" (1985)
*"The Unknown Soldier" (1991)hort stories
*"15 x 3" (1957) (with Herbert Gold and James B. Hall)
*"The Father and Other Stories" (1965)
*"The Happy Marriage and Other Stories" (1965)
*"Three Stories" (1982)
*"Patrimonies" (1988)
*"Collected Stories" (1989)Other
*"The General Said "Nuts" (1955)
*"Writing Fiction" (1975)
*"In an Iron Time: Statements and Reiterations: Essays" (1967)
*"Intro 1-3" (1968-1970) (editor)
*"Intro 4" (1972) (editor, with Walton Beacham)
*"Norton Anthology of Short Fiction" (1978) (editor)
*"Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction" (1998) (editor withJoyce Carol Oates )References
External links
* [http://www.americanartists.org/art/article_interview_with_rv_cassill.htm Interview with Cassill] from 1999
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