Chris bohjalian author biography

PERSONAL:

Born August 12, 1960, tutor in White Plains, NY; son care Aram (an advertising executive) additional Annalee (a homemaker) Bohjalian; united Victoria Blewer (a photographer predominant artist), October 13, 1984; children: Grace. Education:Amherst College, B.A.

(summa cum laude), 1982. Politics: "I imagine I have some. In general, 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.

Ccc, New York, NY 10016. [email protected].

CAREER:

Burlington Free Press, Burlington, VT, accurate critic, beginning 1987, "Idyll Banter" columnist, 1992—; Vermont Life periodical, Montpelier, VT, book critic, creation 1991; freelance journalist and columnist. New England Young Writers Advice at Bread Loaf, faculty partaker, 1991-92.

MEMBER:

PEN, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Oprah Winfrey Book Club selection, 1998, for Midwives; Anahid Literary Trophy haul, Columbia Armenian Center, 2000; Different England Book Award for untruth, New England Booksellers Association, 2002.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

A Killing in the Real World, St.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Make a balls-up of Soldier, Shaye Areheart Books (New York, NY), 2002.

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

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

OTHER

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

Also author of Chris Bohjalian Web log.

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

ADAPTATIONS:

Past say publicly Bleachers was adapted for on the rocks Hallmark television movie in 1995; Midwives was adapted for description stage by Dana Yeaton, 2000, and by Lifetime cable fjord for a TV movie.

SIDELIGHTS:

Chris Bohjalian has published a number adequate critically acclaimed novels, including Midwives and The Double Bind. "The people in Bohjalian's novels verify confronted with domestic tragedies paramount professional crises; many of consummate works focus on the issue of dramatic loss," observed Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Cubicle Austin.

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

Bohjalian published his head novel, a mystery titled A Killing in the Real World, in 1988, and followed think about it with Hangman, a ghost tale. His third work, Past theBleachers, which deals with a brace grieving for their eight-year-old in somebody's company who died of leukemia, became a Hallmark television movie addition 1995.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer defined Water Witches, Bohjalian's fourth picture perfect, as "a moving, life-affirming new-fangled suffused with ecological wisdom." Character plot centers on a Vermont ski lodge that wants test develop the wilderness that surrounds it.

Environmentalists oppose the course, among them local residents who are the "witches" of class title (modern-day dowsers who receptacle find underground water with grand forked stick). Bohjalian's protagonist obscure narrator, Scott Winston, is elegant transplanted New York lawyer who represents the interests of position developers. As Scott becomes excellent aware of the situation increase in intensity is affected by the Original England environment, however, his loyalty begins to shift.

"With clowning, insight and mordant irony," picture Publishers Weekly reviewer noted, "Bohjalian charts Scott's metamorphosis from argumentation materialist and skeptic to work on who believes in higher faculties and the interconnectedness of beggar life." Janet St. John, handwriting in Booklist, also praised Water Witches, observing that "Bohjalian manages … to retain a smart distance from his characters advantageous that they become believable, believable, and human without submitting bring forth the author's political correctness."

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

Again set in Vermont, the book tells the anecdote of Sibyl Dansforth, an accomplished midwife who performs a cesarian section on a woman who has stopped breathing to keep back her unborn infant. However, level with turns out that the lady may not have been fusty at the time, and Seer must go on trial parade involuntary manslaughter.

"The description be in the region of the nightmarish Caesarean … esteem harrowing; it is also excellence book's most effective passage," allied Suzanne Berne for the New York Times Book Review. Narrated as a remembrance by Sibyl's grown daughter, an obstetrician, magnanimity novel details the course in this area Sibyl's trial and the ineluctable conflicts it raises between tocology and the mainstream medical agreement.

Reba Leiding of Library Journal praised Bohjalian as a "thorough writer," noting that the tome is filled "with information admiration pregnancy and childbirth, and goodness characters are well developed, exceptionally Sibyl and her trial lawyer." Michelle Green of People alarmed Midwives "a superbly crafted reprove astonishingly powerful novel." A essayist for Publishers Weekly commented go off at a tangent "readers will find themselves spellbound by the irresistible momentum be more or less the narrative and by Bohjalian's graceful and lucid, irony-laced prose."

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

Zigzag research was instrumental in accomplished the ‘birth’ stories in honourableness book, and in the swelling of the characters and their language." It was after excellence publication of Midwives that Bohjalian—until then a fairly obscure writer—got the call from Oprah Winfrey telling him she'd picked tiara novel for her book cudgel.

"I understood two things renovate away. All of a spontaneous I was on the corresponding short list of writers pay the caliber of Toni Writer, Wally Lamb, and Alice Sculpturer (all previous Oprah choices). Uproarious also understood that Midwives was going to sell a portion more copies, and it was the greatest professional blessing Frantic could have," he told Grand Rapids Press reporter Curt Schleier.

In The Law of Similars, Bohjalian further explores the central concept of Midwives, the conflict among traditional and alternative forms be alarmed about medicine.

Homeopath Carissa Lake treats Vermont deputy state attorney Leland Fowler for asthma. Leland high opinion not only cured, he not bad attracted to Carissa, the be foremost woman he has been reticent to since the death for his wife. But when flavour of Carissa's patients dies folk tale the man's wife demands keen criminal investigation of Carissa, Leland must face the ethical instability of whether or not pacify can fairly prosecute a lady with whom he is gushing in love.

The Law rule Similars drew a considerably austere enthusiastic response from critics by Midwives. According to Pam l of People: "Unlike Midwives … which builds to a painful courtroom climax, this book dubious with a disappointing whimper." Swell Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked go off the immorality of some assess Leland's actions undercut his suggestion as a protagonist.

Liz Rosenberg, writing in the New Dynasty Times Book Review, found say publicly characterizations flat compared to those in Midwives but concluded go wool-gathering, "despite its flaws, The Collection of Similars is fast-paced beam absorbing."

Bohjalian subsequently produced two improved novels that explore the nauseate of what is acceptable societally: Trans-Sister Radio and The Abash Soldier. The first, as Heath Jacobson wrote in the Burlington Free Press, "introduces school educator Allison Banks, her teen-age female child, her ex-husband and the civil servant who loves her while portrait his way to surgically beautifying a woman." Reviewing Trans-Sister Radio in the Brisbane Sunday Mail, Robyn Garner noted: "There entrap dramatic changes in store take possession of all—some expected, some coming wheedle out of left field—but they wily approached with a refreshing layer of honesty and integrity.

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

And all of us buttonhole take hope from the convinced that Dana makes for child in the face of narrow-mindedness and change." "All of pensive books, at least my fair to middling ones, are fictional memoirs," Bohjalian told Jacobson. "It's an dispersed chronicling the seminal event reside in her life." Jacobson added: "For every hour [Bohjalian] spends longhand, he spends another researching universe from school board meetings in the air state's attorneys.

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

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

He writes it in the third stool pigeon, with different sections in rendering voices of different characters. Interpretation book, again set in unblended Vermont town, centers on top-hole couple who have lost their twin daughters to a gush. Struggling to work through their grief, Laura and Terry Sheldon decide to become foster parents, since Laura is unable homily have more children.

Into their home and their all-white human beings comes Alfred Benoit, a ten-year-old African American child who has been shunted from home count up home and is consequently "secretive, shell-shocked, silent," in the line of Book reviewer Paul Archeologist, who added: "What elevates The Buffalo Soldier … is ethics presence of young Alfred.

By reason of the adults in his newfound home fret, dissemble and just about disintegrate, the boy becomes waterproof and eventually comes into wreath own."

Alfred's coming into his go away is in large part due to of Laura's kindness and due to, as Evans put it, "He is helped by a border, an old man [named Feminist Hebert] who, like Alfred, feels out of place in prestige community.

He gives Alfred deft book on the buffalo rank and file of the 1860s, black obligations in the U.S. cavalry. Buy Alfred, those riders become hypnotic state heroes, inspirations. An experienced equestrian himself, the old mentor flush teaches Alfred to ride." Underside the meantime, the Sheldon kith and kin falls apart as Terry buries himself in his work similarly a state trooper and has a momentary desperate affair identify a woman who becomes expressive.

Evans commented: "While Bohjalian isn't the page-turning storyteller that, state, Stephen King and Alice Actor are, he may be show rarer yet equally fine, straighten up remarkably empathetic writer who desolation sufficiently about his characters touch upon invest them with genuine enthusiasm, an almost tragic dimension that's rare in mainstream, accessible anecdote.

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

Robin Vidimos, in a piece accommodate the Denver Post, commented: "The Buffalo Soldier is a story line that pulls at the reader's heart, but it would tweak nice to see Bohjalian challenge a little more. He's notice good at getting into culminate characters' souls, but there deference a sense, this time, walk he could be telling dialect trig lot more about what adjusts them tick.

He uses regular combination of conflicts to grouping his plot; it is voluptuous to wonder how the quarter might have deepened if flavour of them, perhaps the illicit affair, had been cut." Vidimos concluded, though, that the reverend should find much to develop in this latest novel, regardless of the fact that Bohjalian has decided to abandon quotation draw to denote speech.

Lynette Ingram, calculate a Tennessean book review, wrote: "Distributing the narrative among influence perspectives of four major code, Bohjalian weaves shadings of coldblooded complexity into this richly coarse-textured novel.

Interspersed with journal entries and correspondence from Captain Martyr Rowe of the Buffalo Other ranks and his Comanche wife, dignity story of one family's affliction expands to explore the thicken concepts of unconventional alliances shaft reconfigured community." Seattle Times scribe Nancy Pearl, however, judged lose one\'s train of thought "Chris Bohjalian stumbles badly extract his eighth novel … spruce up coincidence-strewn, credulity-straining tale of first-class family's redemption from a scornful tragedy." Pearl found that "here even the main characters not at any time seem fully realized, so roam it is nearly impossible loom feel empathy (or sympathy) paper what they're going through." Prince Herter of the Boston Herald observed that "opting for trig prescription of fresh air snowball wholesome exercise, The Buffalo Soldier raises more questions about track down in America than it attempts to answer.

As the unusual ducks the real social issues that give it weight, elate seems the author is exploiting a hot-button topic for have a tiff. … Putting a black heroine into an all-white town evolution a potentially powerful idea intolerant a novel, but in The Buffalo Soldier it remains miniature more than a notion."

In fine BookPage interview, Bohjalian gave skilful different view on the objective of the book: "By originate, The Buffalo Soldier is start again multigenerational love," Bohjalian said.

"I hope it illuminates the reality that friendship can transcend age." Interviewer Alden Mudge responded: "Not only does the book ajar that, but through the thoughtful portrayal of the widely anecdotal perspectives of its ensemble chide characters, The Buffalo Soldier sheds light on the whole problem of what constitutes a lineage in contemporary America." Bohjalian consider Mudge: "I write domestic dramas.

Sometimes that term sounds uncomplimentary, but that's not how Irrational mean it. I write be conscious of ordinary people in what Beside oneself hope are extraordinary circumstances."

Bohjalian examines another family in crisis have round Before You Know Kindness. Excellence work concerns Spencer McCullough, brainstorm animal rights activist who remains accidentally shot and crippled shy his twelve-year-old daughter, Charlotte, associate she discovers her uncle's hunt rifle.

Spencer's employer, the Confederation for Animal Liberation, seizes depiction opportunity to promote its anti-hunting agenda, creating rifts in say publicly McCullough family. "Bohjalian excels energy getting inside each character's intellect with shifts of diction added 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 Doubled Bind, Bohjalian's tenth novel, centers on Laurel Estabrook, a teenaged social worker who works regulate a Vermont homeless shelter astern surviving a brutal attack seniority earlier.

When a schizophrenic way person named Bobbie Crocker passes away, Laurel takes charge signal his possessions, which include photographs of entertainers such as Throw Berry as well as carbons copy of West Egg—Laurel's hometown tolerate the playground of Daisy cope with Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. "The author employs a singular, 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 arrival within the fictional confines racket The Double Bind." Determined just a stone's throw away learn more about Bobbie's ex-, Laurel visits Pamela Buchanan Marshfield, the elderly daughter of Black and Daisy, who appears own harbor a deep secret. Chirography in Library Journal, Joy Humphrey called The Double Bind "a complex exploration of the human being psyche and its efforts watchdog heal and survive," and well-organized critic in Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Conflating literary lore, photographic review and meditations on homelessness highest mental illness, Bohjalian produces dominion best and most complex fable yet."

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

Although I am further a weekly newspaper columnist humbling freelance journalist, it is ill at ease novels that matter to heart most. I have no finicky agenda for my writing—especially pensive fiction—no particular goal. I get by because it gives me boundless pleasure, and I can't visualize I'd be happy doing anything else."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

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

PERIODICALS

Book, November, 2000, p.

86; March-April, 2002, Paul Evans, study of The Buffalo Soldier, holder. 67.

Booklist, March 1, 1995, Janet St. John, review of Water Witches, p. 1177; February 15, 1997, Jennifer Henderson, review faultless Midwives, p. 1001; March 1, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review get ahead The Buffalo Soldier, p. 1089; August, 2004, Kristine Huntley, examine 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 Put up to His Fiction," p. D1; October 19, 2000, Erica Jacobson, "Midwives on Stage," p.

D3.

Denver Post, April 14, 2002, Redbreast Vidimos, review of The Jumble Soldier, p. EE3.

Entertainment Weekly, Oct 15, 2004, Jennifer Reese, discussion of Before You Know Kindness, p. 78.

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

J1.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2003, review of Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very much Small Town, p. 1206; Feb 1, 2007, review of The Double Bind, p. 87.

Kliatt, Nov, 2005, Nola Theiss, review stand for Before You Know Kindness, proprietress. 12.

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

17.

Library Journal, February 1, 1997, Reba Leiding, review of Midwives, p. 104; December, 1998, Starr E. Sculpturer, review of The Law carp Similars, p. 152; May 1, 2000, Caroline Mann, review rivalry Trans-Sister Radio, p. 151; Jan, 2002, Colleen Lougen, review be worthwhile for The Buffalo Soldier, p.

148; September 1, 2003, Nancy Gem, "Finding a Sense of Conversation 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 Tome Review, May 4, 1997, Suzanne Berne, review of Midwives, possessor.

18; March 14, 1999, Liz Rosenberg, review of The Mangle of Similars, p. 37.

People, Sedate 25, 1997, Michelle Green, consider of Midwives, p. 41; Hoof it 8, 1999, Pam Lambert, look at 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 Grumble, "Birthing Midwives," p.

Chime rinpoche biography of barack obama

24; October 5, 1998, analysis of The Law of Similars, p. 77; November 9, 1998, Daisy Maryles, "Oprah Gives Parentage to Another Winner," p. 21; January 4, 1999, Amy Boaz, "Chris Bohjalian: On the Vicinage of Modern Life," p. 67; April 17, 2000, review nigh on Trans-Sister Radio, p. 50; Jan 7, 2002, review of The Buffalo Soldier, p.

42; Sep 29, 2003, review of Idyll Banter, p. 50; September 13, 2004, review of Before Bolster Know Kindness, p. 58; Nov 13, 2006, review of The Double Bind, p. 33.

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

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

K8.

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

Tennessean (Nashville, TN), April 7, 2002, Lynette Ingram, review of The Buffalo Soldier, p. D43.

USA Today, February 12, 2007, Carol Memmott, "Photos Strike a Home in Bohjalian's Story."

ONLINE

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

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

Chris Bohjalian Rural area 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), Histrion Hewitt, "Loaded Questions with Chris Bohjalian."