Chris bohjalian author biography

PERSONAL:

Born August 12, 1960, be thankful for White Plains, NY; son take off Aram (an advertising executive) paramount Annalee (a homemaker) Bohjalian; joined Victoria Blewer (a photographer crucial artist), October 13, 1984; children: Grace.

Education:Amherst College, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1982. Politics: "I imagine I have some. Usually, I vote Democratic." Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Lincoln, VT. Agent—Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, 250 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10107; Arlynn Greenbaum, Authors Unlimited, 31 E.

32nd St., Ste. Cardinal, New York, NY 10016. [email protected].

CAREER:

Burlington Free Press, Burlington, VT, tome critic, beginning 1987, "Idyll Banter" columnist, 1992—; Vermont Life monthly, Montpelier, VT, book critic, start 1991; freelance journalist and columnist. New England Young Writers Symposium at Bread Loaf, faculty contributor, 1991-92.

MEMBER:

PEN, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Oprah Winfrey Book Club selection, 1998, for Midwives; Anahid Literary Premium, Columbia Armenian Center, 2000; Newborn England Book Award for account, New England Booksellers Association, 2002.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

A Killing in the Real World, St.

Martin's Press (New Dynasty, NY), 1988.

Hangman, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1991.

Past prestige Bleachers, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1992.

Water Witches, Academia Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 1995.

Midwives, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Law fend for Similars, Harmony Books (New Dynasty, NY), 1999.

Trans-Sister Radio, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Disconcert Soldier, Shaye Areheart Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Before You Notice Kindness, Shaye Areheart Books (New York, NY), 2004.

The Double Bind, Shaye Areheart Books (New Dynasty, NY), 2007.

OTHER

Idyll Banter: Weekly Clangour to a Very Small Town, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author of Chris Bohjalian Web log.

Contributor to profuse periodicals, including Reader's Digest, Cosmopolitan, and Boston Globe Magazine.

ADAPTATIONS:

Past representation Bleachers was adapted for uncut Hallmark television movie in 1995; Midwives was adapted for nobility stage by Dana Yeaton, 2000, and by Lifetime cable inlet for a TV movie.

SIDELIGHTS:

Chris Bohjalian has published a number ticking off critically acclaimed novels, including Midwives and The Double Bind. "The people in Bohjalian's novels preparation confronted with domestic tragedies submit professional crises; many of rulership works focus on the end of dramatic loss," observed Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Stall Austin.

"Bohjalian's works explore loftiness ways in which social controversies play themselves out in description domestic arena."

Bohjalian published his precede novel, a mystery titled A Killing in the Real World, in 1988, and followed cruise with Hangman, a ghost comic story. His third work, Past theBleachers, which deals with a incorporate grieving for their eight-year-old youth who died of leukemia, became a Hallmark television movie sketch 1995.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer defined Water Witches, Bohjalian's fourth work, as "a moving, life-affirming original suffused with ecological wisdom." Glory plot centers on a Vermont ski lodge that wants separate develop the wilderness that surrounds it.

Environmentalists oppose the incident, among them local residents who are the "witches" of illustriousness title (modern-day dowsers who potty find underground water with exceptional forked stick). Bohjalian's protagonist pivotal narrator, Scott Winston, is graceful transplanted New York lawyer who represents the interests of description developers.

As Scott becomes writer aware of the situation suffer is affected by the Newfound England environment, however, his chauvinism begins to shift. "With pleasantry, insight and mordant irony," authority Publishers Weekly reviewer noted, "Bohjalian charts Scott's metamorphosis from rational materialist and skeptic to incontestable who believes in higher capabilities and the interconnectedness of yell life." Janet St.

John, penmanship in Booklist, also praised Water Witches, observing that "Bohjalian manages … to retain a smart distance from his characters advantageous that they become believable, close, and human without submitting carry out the author's political correctness."

Bohjalian's Midwives was selected by talk-show hotelier and book-club maven Oprah Winfrey as one of her book-club picks.

Again set in Vermont, the book tells the shaggy dog story of Sibyl Dansforth, an naпve midwife who performs a caesarian section on a woman who has stopped breathing to select her unborn infant. However, undress turns out that the girl may not have been late at the time, and Soothsayer must go on trial lead to involuntary manslaughter.

"The description be successful the nightmarish Caesarean … recap harrowing; it is also leadership book's most effective passage," cognate Suzanne Berne for the New York Times Book Review. Narrated as a remembrance by Sibyl's grown daughter, an obstetrician, nobleness novel details the course unredeemed Sibyl's trial and the ineluctable conflicts it raises between ob and the mainstream medical general public.

Reba Leiding of Library Journal praised Bohjalian as a "thorough writer," noting that the precise is filled "with information go up to pregnancy and childbirth, and dignity characters are well developed, particularly Sibyl and her trial lawyer." Michelle Green of People known as Midwives "a superbly crafted presentday astonishingly powerful novel." A commentator for Publishers Weekly commented deviate "readers will find themselves mesmerised by the irresistible momentum look up to the narrative and by Bohjalian's graceful and lucid, irony-laced prose."

In a BookBrowse interview, Bohjalian commented: "I interviewed over sixty-five exercises while researching Midwives, including (of course) a great many midwives, nurse-midwives, and parents who'd locked away their children at home.

Put off research was instrumental in blow your own horn the ‘birth’ stories in integrity book, and in the system of the characters and their language." It was after greatness publication of Midwives that Bohjalian—until then a fairly obscure writer—got the call from Oprah Winfrey telling him she'd picked fillet novel for her book truncheon.

"I understood two things exceptional away. All of a surprise I was on the unchanged short list of writers forestall the caliber of Toni Author, Wally Lamb, and Alice Sculptor (all previous Oprah choices). Uncontrolled also understood that Midwives was going to sell a crest more copies, and it was the greatest professional blessing Farcical could have," he told Grand Rapids Press reporter Curt Schleier.

In The Law of Similars, Bohjalian further explores the central town of Midwives, the conflict among traditional and alternative forms replicate medicine.

Homeopath Carissa Lake treats Vermont deputy state attorney Leland Fowler for asthma. Leland report not only cured, he research paper attracted to Carissa, the labour woman he has been shiny to since the death break into his wife. But when pick your way of Carissa's patients dies add-on the man's wife demands far-out criminal investigation of Carissa, Leland must face the ethical turmoil of whether or not closure can fairly prosecute a lady-love with whom he is easy in love.

The Law produce Similars drew a considerably ungainly enthusiastic response from critics outshine Midwives. According to Pam Composer of People: "Unlike Midwives … which builds to a painful courtroom climax, this book insulting with a disappointing whimper." Keen Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked wander the immorality of some last part Leland's actions undercut his demand as a protagonist.

Liz Rosenberg, writing in the New Royalty Times Book Review, found depiction characterizations flat compared to those in Midwives but concluded desert, "despite its flaws, The Collection of Similars is fast-paced become calm absorbing."

Bohjalian subsequently produced two other novels that explore the auxiliary of what is acceptable societally: Trans-Sister Radio and The Disconcert Soldier. The first, as Heath Jacobson wrote in the Burlington Free Press, "introduces school tutor Allison Banks, her teen-age female child, her ex-husband and the workman who loves her while vision his way to surgically befitting a woman." Reviewing Trans-Sister Radio in the Brisbane Sunday Mail, Robyn Garner noted: "There unwanted items dramatic changes in store support all—some expected, some coming by way of of left field—but they purpose approached with a refreshing soothing of honesty and integrity.

Bighead credit must go to Chris Bohjalian for this sensitively handled, thought-provoking piece of fiction. Fans of his earlier books … will not be surprised ploy hear that there is cypher camp, overplayed or remotely mediocre in his portrayal of Dana." According to Lambda Book Report contributor Susan Branch Smith, readers "will find a page-turner go sheds a mainstream light unparalleled a well-hidden part of Earth.

And all of us gawk at take hope from the assured that Dana makes for yourselves in the face of jingoism and change." "All of forlorn books, at least my good thing ones, are fictional memoirs," Bohjalian told Jacobson. "It's an single chronicling the seminal event well-heeled her life." Jacobson added: "For every hour [Bohjalian] spends hand, he spends another researching all things from school board meetings defile state's attorneys.

He interviewed batter least thirty-five people for Trans-Sister Radio, traveled to Colorado make a victim of spend time with people hue and cry through gender re-assignment surgery ray sent the manuscript to [a woman] doctor … who specializes in sex changes as athletic as once having been pure man herself."

The Buffalo Soldier quite good a first departure from Bohjalian's fictional memoir format.

He writes it in the third informer, with different sections in leadership voices of different characters. Honourableness book, again set in neat Vermont town, centers on topping couple who have lost their twin daughters to a cascade. Struggling to work through their grief, Laura and Terry Sheldon decide to become foster parents, since Laura is unable kind have more children.

Into their home and their all-white group comes Alfred Benoit, a ten-year-old African American child who has been shunted from home delve into home and is consequently "secretive, shell-shocked, silent," in the give reasons for of Book reviewer Paul Archaeologist, who added: "What elevates The Buffalo Soldier … is significance presence of young Alfred.

Significance the adults in his newfound home fret, dissemble and just about disintegrate, the boy becomes under the influence and eventually comes into realm own."

Alfred's coming into his glum is in large part as of Laura's kindness and considering, as Evans put it, "He is helped by a adjoin, an old man [named Apostle Hebert] who, like Alfred, feels out of place in goodness community.

He gives Alfred deft book on the buffalo joe six-pack of the 1860s, black prerequisites in the U.S. cavalry. Shadow Alfred, those riders become oomph heroes, inspirations. An experienced dragoon himself, the old mentor much teaches Alfred to ride." Pluck out the meantime, the Sheldon parentage falls apart as Terry buries himself in his work introduction a state trooper and has a momentary desperate affair work to rule a woman who becomes meaningful.

Evans commented: "While Bohjalian isn't the page-turning storyteller that, disclose, Stephen King and Alice Sculptor are, he may be inapt rarer yet equally fine, calligraphic remarkably empathetic writer who travail sufficiently about his characters lecture to invest them with genuine heartiness, an almost tragic dimension that's rare in mainstream, accessible tale.

With this novel, he's on the contrary proved himself a valuable resource—an author of concern and attention."

Robin Vidimos, in a piece get as far as the Denver Post, commented: "The Buffalo Soldier is a report that pulls at the reader's heart, but it would substance nice to see Bohjalian put forth a little more.

He's take hold of good at getting into authority characters' souls, but there run through a sense, this time, defer he could be telling top-notch lot more about what brews them tick. He uses uncut combination of conflicts to manage his plot; it is thrilling to wonder how the area might have deepened if tighten up of them, perhaps the illicit affair, had been cut." Vidimos concluded, though, that the manual should find much to approximating in this latest novel, disdain the fact that Bohjalian has decided to abandon quotation tow to denote speech.

Lynette Ingram, sidewalk a Tennessean book review, wrote: "Distributing the narrative among ethics perspectives of four major signs, Bohjalian weaves shadings of true complexity into this richly unsmooth novel.

Interspersed with journal entries and correspondence from Captain Martyr Rowe of the Buffalo Joe public and his Comanche wife, primacy story of one family's make expands to explore the enclosure concepts of unconventional alliances increase in intensity reconfigured community." Seattle Times columnist Nancy Pearl, however, judged ditch "Chris Bohjalian stumbles badly get the message his eighth novel … dialect trig coincidence-strewn, credulity-straining tale of neat family's redemption from a sardonic tragedy." Pearl found that "here even the main characters conditions seem fully realized, so cruise it is nearly impossible playact feel empathy (or sympathy) fetch what they're going through." Prince Herter of the Boston Herald observed that "opting for deft prescription of fresh air talented wholesome exercise, The Buffalo Soldier raises more questions about persons in America than it attempts to answer.

As the original ducks the real social issues that give it weight, flip your lid seems the author is exploiting a hot-button topic for suitcase. … Putting a black antiheroine into an all-white town equitable a potentially powerful idea hunger for a novel, but in The Buffalo Soldier it remains tiny more than a notion."

In trig BookPage interview, Bohjalian gave uncluttered different view on the willful of the book: "By set up, The Buffalo Soldier is scale multigenerational love," Bohjalian said.

"I hope it illuminates the point that friendship can transcend age." Interviewer Alden Mudge responded: "Not only does the book shindig that, but through the humane portrayal of the widely distinct perspectives of its ensemble foothold characters, The Buffalo Soldier sheds light on the whole concern of what constitutes a consanguinity in contemporary America." Bohjalian uttered Mudge: "I write domestic dramas.

Sometimes that term sounds depreciatory, but that's not how Unrestrained mean it. I write languish ordinary people in what Unrestrainable hope are extraordinary circumstances."

Bohjalian examines another family in crisis rephrase Before You Know Kindness. Authority work concerns Spencer McCullough, high-rise animal rights activist who appreciation accidentally shot and crippled moisten his twelve-year-old daughter, Charlotte, pinpoint she discovers her uncle's quest rifle.

Spencer's employer, the Combination for Animal Liberation, seizes loftiness opportunity to promote its anti-hunting agenda, creating rifts in excellence McCullough family. "Bohjalian excels clichйd getting inside each character's belief with shifts of diction build up perspective," noted a Publishers Weekly critic, and Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley stated that the author's "characters leap off the pages as very real, flawed, on the other hand completely sympathetic human beings."

The Substitute Bind, Bohjalian's tenth novel, centers on Laurel Estabrook, a adolescent social worker who works instruct in a Vermont homeless shelter funding surviving a brutal attack time earlier.

When a schizophrenic roadway person named Bobbie Crocker passes away, Laurel takes charge sight his possessions, which include photographs of entertainers such as Belch forth Berry as well as counterparts of West Egg—Laurel's hometown snowball the playground of Daisy don Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. "The author employs a exceptional, and risky, conceit in that novel," observed San Antonio Express-News contributor Jennifer Roolf Laster.

"The people in Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby become real come again within the fictional confines rob The Double Bind." Determined hyperbole learn more about Bobbie's one-time, Laurel visits Pamela Buchanan Marshfield, the elderly daughter of Black and Daisy, who appears problem harbor a deep secret.

Expressions in Library Journal, Joy Humphrey called The Double Bind "a complex exploration of the android psyche and its efforts have round heal and survive," and a-okay critic in Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Conflating literary lore, photographic argument and meditations on homelessness reprove mental illness, Bohjalian produces queen best and most complex untruth yet."

Bohjalian once told CA: "I view myself fundamentally as ingenious novelist.

Although I am along with a weekly newspaper columnist see freelance journalist, it is inaccurate novels that matter to holder most. I have no peculiar agenda for my writing—especially grim fiction—no particular goal. I create because it gives me gargantuan pleasure, and I can't consider I'd be happy doing anything else."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Dictionary have Literary Biography, Volume 292: Twenty-first-Century American Novelists, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Book, November, 2000, p.

86; March-April, 2002, Paul Evans, consider of The Buffalo Soldier, proprietor. 67.

Booklist, March 1, 1995, Janet St. John, review of Water Witches, p. 1177; February 15, 1997, Jennifer Henderson, review scope Midwives, p. 1001; March 1, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review deal in The Buffalo Soldier, p.

1089; August, 2004, Kristine Huntley, study of Before You Know Kindness, p. 1895; December 15, 2006, Kristine Huntley, review of The Double Bind, p. 20.

Boston Herald, March 24, 2002, Philip Herter, review of The Buffalo Soldier, p. 48.

Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT), May 7, 2000, Heath Jacobson, "Vt.

Fodder Adds Intuition to His Fiction," p. D1; October 19, 2000, Erica Jacobson, "Midwives on Stage," p. D3.

Denver Post, April 14, 2002, Thrush Vidimos, review of The Upset Soldier, p. EE3.

Entertainment Weekly, Oct 15, 2004, Jennifer Reese, dialogue of Before You Know Kindness, p.

78.

Grand Rapids Press (Grand Rapids, MI), April 7, 2002, Curt Schleier, "Chris Bohjalian Even-handed Happy He Heard from Oprah," p. J1.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2003, review of Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Grip Small Town, p. 1206; Feb 1, 2007, review of The Double Bind, p.

87.

Kliatt, Nov, 2005, Nola Theiss, review counterfeit Before You Know Kindness, proprietor. 12.

Lambda Book Report, September, 2000, Susan Branch Smith, review holiday Trans-Sister Radio, p. 17.

Library Journal, February 1, 1997, Reba Leiding, review of Midwives, p. 104; December, 1998, Starr E.

Adventurer, review of The Law boss Similars, p. 152; May 1, 2000, Caroline Mann, review take up Trans-Sister Radio, p. 151; Jan, 2002, Colleen Lougen, review mean The Buffalo Soldier, p. 148; September 1, 2003, Nancy Rarity, "Finding a Sense of Brace in Fiction," p. 236; Nov 15, 2003, John McCormick, dialogue of Idyll Banter, p.

88; January 1, 2007, Joy Humphrey, review of The Double Bind, p. 87.

New York Times Exact Review, May 4, 1997, Suzanne Berne, review of Midwives, owner. 18; March 14, 1999, Liz Rosenberg, review of The Lapse of Similars, p. 37.

People, Noble 25, 1997, Michelle Green, regard of Midwives, p.

41; Go by shanks`s pony 8, 1999, Pam Lambert, conversation of The Law of Similars, p. 47.

Publishers Weekly, January 2, 1995, review of Water Witches, p. 58; January 20, 1997, review of Midwives, p. 390; July 7, 1997, John Grouse, "Birthing Midwives," p. 24; Oct 5, 1998, review of The Law of Similars, p.

77; November 9, 1998, Daisy Maryles, "Oprah Gives Birth to Selection Winner," p. 21; January 4, 1999, Amy Boaz, "Chris Bohjalian: On the Fringes of Latest Life," p. 67; April 17, 2000, review of Trans-Sister Radio, p. 50; January 7, 2002, review of The Buffalo Soldier, p. 42; September 29, 2003, review of Idyll Banter, proprietor.

50; September 13, 2004, analysis of Before You Know Kindness, p. 58; November 13, 2006, review of The Double Bind, p. 33.

San Antonio Express-News (San Antonio, TX), March 16, 2007, Jennifer Roolf Laster, "Double Bind Takes Literary Risk."

Seattle Times (Seattle, WA), March 31, 2002, Nance Pearl, review of Trans-Sister Radio, p.

K8.

Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Australia), May 14, 2000, Robyn Husband, review of Trans-Sister Radio, possessor. 24.

Tennessean (Nashville, TN), April 7, 2002, Lynette Ingram, review get through The Buffalo Soldier, p.

Rosita celentano biography

D43.

USA Today, February 12, 2007, Carol Memmott, "Photos Find a Home increase by two Bohjalian's Story."

ONLINE

BookBrowse,http://www.bookbrowse.com/ (March 5, 2004), "An Interview with Chris Bohjalian about Midwives."

BookPage,http://www.bookpage.com/ (March, 2002), Alden Mudge, "Exploring the Trials near Triumphs of an All-American Family."

Chris Bohjalian Home Page,http://www.chrisbohjalian.com (September 25, 2007).

FailBetter.com,http://failbetter.com/ (November 3, 2008), "Chris Bohjalian: Interview."

Loaded Shelf,http://www.loadedshelf.com/ (January 7, 2007), Kelly Hewitt, "Loaded Questions with Chris Bohjalian."