Blake Bailey | |
|---|---|
 January 2011 | |
| Born | July 1, 1963 |
| Occupation | Biographer |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Tulane University |
John Blake Bailey [1] (born July 1, 1963) is an American writer and educator. Bailey is known for his literary biographies of Richard Yates, John Cheever, Charles Jackson, and Philip Roth. He is the editor of the Library of America omnibus editions of Cheever's stories and novels.
Bailey grew up in Oklahoma City and attended high school at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School, where he was friends with another future author, Dan Fagin. [2] He was a student at Tulane University, from which he graduated in 1985.
Bailey and his family lost their house and most of their possessions in Hurricane Katrina, an experience he wrote about in a series of articles for Slate . [3]
In 2009–2010, Bailey was Writer in Residence at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. [4] From 2010 to 2016, he was the Mina Hohenberg Darden Professor of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. [5] He was succeeded by Black Elk author Joe Jackson. [5] Bailey is a tennis enthusiast. [6]
After college, Bailey wrote occasional freelance pieces. He taught gifted eighth-graders at Lusher Middle School in New Orleans in the 1990s. [7]
After publishing a long critical profile of Richard Yates, Bailey was contracted to write a full-length biography of the novelist, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (2003).
In 2005, Bailey was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on his biography, Cheever: A Life, which won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award among other honors. Bailey also edited a two-volume edition of Cheever's work for the Library of America.
Bailey published his biography of the novelist Charles Jackson, Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (2013), as well as a memoir, The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait (2014).
In an interview with The New York Times published on November 17, 2012, Philip Roth said that Bailey was his official biographer and at work on that project. [8] While Roth was alive, he gave Bailey exclusive access to papers, friends and family, and made himself available for extensive interviews. [9] [10] Bailey's 880-page biography of Roth, entitled Philip Roth: The Biography , was published in the United States by W. W. Norton & Company on April 6, 2021, [11] and in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on April 8, 2021.
Bailey’s primary influence is Lytton Strachey, who he has praised for his style and sense of humor. [12] Other influences on Bailey’s work include Vladimir Nabokov, Evelyn Waugh, and PG Wodehouse. [13]
On April 16, 2021, several former students of Bailey's left comments on a critical review of Bailey's Roth biography, alleging that Bailey had groomed them when they were minors. [14] On April 18, 2021, Bailey was dropped by his agency, the Story Factory, following these allegations of sexual misconduct, which Bailey denied. [15] On April 20, 2021, journalists Ramon Antonio Vargas and Edward Champion first reported on these allegations in detail. [16] [17] Bailey was accused of grooming his former students at Lusher Middle School for sex. [18] One former student, Eve Crawford Peyton, has accused Bailey of raping her when she was 22 years old. [19] On April 27, 2021, he was also accused of "nonconsensual sex" by Valentina Rice, a publishing executive. [20]
On June 10, 2021, in an article published in the Virginian-Pilot, four women at Old Dominion University, where Bailey had previously worked, accused Bailey of sexual assault and harassment. One of the women accused Bailey of “grabbing her crotch in a hot tub, forcibly trying to kiss her on campus, (and) threatening to rape her,” only stopping after she pulled a knife out and held it against his throat, the newspaper reported. Another account in the Virginian-Pilot's report concerned a female author who visited Old Dominion and recounted how Bailey had forcibly kissed her. Two graduate students also described Bailey getting "handsy" and making unwanted advances, as well as making sexually explicit comments to them. [21] [22]
In a statement provided to the Associated Press on April 21 by W. W. Norton & Company, the publisher announced it had "decided to pause the shipping and promotion of Philip Roth: The Biography pending any further information that may emerge." [23] On April 28, W. W. Norton announced that it is taking the book out of print. [24] Three weeks later, in May 2021, Skyhorse Publishing announced that it would release a paperback, ebook, and audiobook versions of the biography. [25]
As editor:
Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.
John William Cheever was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born; and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer", and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicle , The Wapshot Scandal, Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982).
Robert Allan Caro is an American journalist and author known for his biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Richard Yates was an American fiction writer identified with the mid-century "Age of Anxiety". His first novel, Revolutionary Road, was a finalist for the 1962 National Book Award, while his first short story collection, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, brought comparisons to James Joyce. Critical acclaim for his writing, however, was not reflected in commercial success during his lifetime.
"The Swimmer" is a short story by American author John Cheever. It was originally published in The New Yorker on July 18, 1964, and later in the short fiction collections The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964) and The Stories of John Cheever (1978). Considered one of the author's most outstanding works, "The Swimmer" has received exhaustive analysis from critics and biographers.
Alan Shaw Taylor is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial history of the United States, the American Revolution and the early American Republic. Taylor has received two Pulitzer Prizes and the Bancroft Prize, and was also a finalist for the National Book Award for non-fiction. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
James Wolcott is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He had his own blog on Vanity Fair magazine's main site which was awarded a Webby Award in 2007.
The Francis Parkman Prize, named after Francis Parkman, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing. The Society of American Historians is an affiliate of the American Historical Association.
The Five-Forty-Eight is a short story written by John Cheever that was originally published in the April 10, 1954, issue of The New Yorker and later collected in The Stories of John Cheever (1978).
David Hajdu is an American columnist, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was the music critic for The New Republic for 12 years and is music editor at The Nation.
The Scarborough Day School was a private school in Scarborough-on-Hudson, in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Frank and Narcissa Cox Vanderlip established the school in 1913 at their estate, Beechwood. The school, a nonsectarian nonprofit college preparatory day school, taught students at pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade levels and had small class sizes, with total enrollment rarely exceeding 150 students. Since 1980, the buildings and property have been owned by The Clear View School, which runs a day treatment program for 83 students. The current school still uses the Scarborough School's theater, which was opened in 1917. The school campus is a contributing property to the Scarborough Historic District.
The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever. Composed of eight short stories, the volume was first published by Harper & Bros. in 1958. Reissued by Hillman/MacFadden in 1961, the works are included in The Stories of John Cheever (1978). The works were originally published individually in The New Yorker.
Mona Wilson was a British public servant and author. After voluntary social work, seeking to improve the conditions of working women in deprived industrial areas, she joined the civil service in 1911, and became one of the first women in Britain to earn equal pay with her male colleagues. She left the civil service in 1919 and pursued a literary career.
Philip Roth: The Biography is a 2021 book by biographer Blake Bailey. It is the authorized biography of American novelist Philip Roth (1933–2018). It was first published on April 6, 2021, by W. W. Norton & Company. Norton, however, later cancelled publication of the book. Three weeks later, in May 2021, Skyhorse Publishing announced that it would release paperback, ebook, and audiobook versions of the biography.
The Enormous Radio and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever published in 1953 by Funk and Wagnalls. All fourteen stories were first published individually in The New Yorker. These works are included in The Stories of John Cheever (1978) published by Alfred A. Knopf.
The Way Some People Live is a collection of 30 works of short fiction by John Cheever, published in 1943 by Random House.
The Brigadier and the Golf Widow is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever, published by Harper and Row in 1964. These sixteen works were first published individually in The New Yorker. The works also appears in The Stories of John Cheever (1978).
Some People, Places and Things That Will Not Appear In My Next Novel is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever, published by Harper and Bros. in 1961. These nine short stories first appeared individually in The New Yorker or Esquire magazines. These works are included in the collection The Stories of John Cheever (1978), published by Alfred A. Knopf.
The World of Apples is the sixth collection of short fiction by author John Cheever, published in 1973 by Alfred A. Knopf. The ten stories originally appeared individually in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post or Playboy.
"Expelled" is a short story by John Cheever published by The New Republic in 1930. The story appears in a collection of Cheever's short fiction, Thirteen Uncollected Stories by John Cheever, published in 1994 by Academy Chicago Publishers
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
