Jean Hanff Korelitz | |
|---|---|
 Jean Hanff Korelitz | |
| Born | May 16, 1961 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College; Clare College, Cambridge |
| Notable works | Admission, The White Rose, You Should Have Known, The Plot,The Latecomer |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Jean Hanff Korelitz (born May 16, 1961) is an American novelist, playwright, theater producer and essayist. [1]
Korelitz was born to Jewish parents and raised in New York City. After graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in English, she continued her studies at Clare College, Cambridge, [2] where she was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal. [1] She has published nine novels since 1996, the most recent being The Sequel, published in October 2024. She has also written articles and essays for many publications, including Real Simple and the "Modern Love" column in The New York Times .
In 2013 Korelitz created BOOKTHEWRITER, a New York City based service that presents "Pop-Up Book Groups" with prominent authors in private homes. Approximately 20 events are held each year and groups are limited to 20. Past authors have included Joyce Carol Oates, Erica Jong, David Duchovny, Jeanine Cummins, Christina Baker Kline, Jane Green, Adriana Trigiani, Meghan Daum, Dani Shapiro, Darin Strauss, Elizabeth Strout and many others. [3]
In 2015 Korelitz and her sister, Nina Korelitz Matza, created Dot Dot Productions, LLC, in order to produce The Dead, 1904, an immersive theater adaptation of James Joyce's short story "The Dead", with The Irish Repertory Theatre. The story was adapted by Korelitz and Paul Muldoon. [4]
While living in England, Korelitz met Irish poet Paul Muldoon. The couple married on August 30, 1987, [1] and went on to have two children: Dorothy (born 1992) and Asher (born 1999). From 1990 until 2013 on they lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where Muldoon has long taught Creative Writing. They now reside in Korelitz's native New York City. [5] During a talk for House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining program, Korelitz said she “became an atheist at the age of eight." [6]
Korelitz's first novel, A Jury of Her Peers, was a legal thriller about a Legal Aid lawyer who uncovers a jury tampering plot, which Kirkus called "a monstrous-conspiracy wolf in legal-intrigue clothing." [7] Her second novel, The Sabbathday River, transplanted elements of the plot of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to a small community near Hanover, New Hampshire, and described a case of infanticide and a resulting trial. [8]
Korelitz's third novel, The White Rose, transposed the plot and characters of the Richard Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier to 1990s New York City. In The New York Times Book Review , reviewer Elizabeth Judd described The White Rose as "incisive and urbane ... (hearkening) back to the gender confusions of Shakespeare's comedies" and called the novel "a significant step forward" following Korelitz's earlier legal thrillers. Anthony Giardina, reviewing the novel in the San Francisco Chronicle, complained that the character of Oliver was occasionally unconvincing but called the academic details of Sophie's and Marian's lives "spot-on". The Boston Globe 's reviewer, Barbara Fisher, wrote: "Within the comic plot of this lighthearted novel lies a weightier theme. Having played around with disguises, cross-dressing, and self-delusion, the characters happily gain the prize of self-knowledge." [9]
Admission, published in April 2009, was reviewed in the Education supplement of The New York Times by a high school senior who compared the college application process to the heroine's mid-life crisis. [10] Entertainment Weekly gave the novel an A− rating and called it "that rare thing in a novel: both juicy and literary, a genuinely smart read with a human, beating heart." [11] In its review, Huffington Post reviewer Malcolm Ritter singled out the "atmosphere and details" of the admissions office setting. "That's fascinating for us who've gotten good or bad news from colleges for which we yearned, or shepherded ambitious children through the gauntlet of the application process." [12] The Wall Street Journal criticized the novel for its "wooden monologues" and "improbable love story". [13]
Admission was adapted by screenwriter Karen Croner for the 2013 film of the same name, starring Tina Fey.
Grand Central Publishing published Korelitz's fifth novel, You Should Have Known, in March 2014. The book tells the story of a New York therapist who discovers that her beloved husband has a secret and unfathomable life and may have been responsible for a murder. The book was published in eighteen languages. An HBO adaptation of the book, titled The Undoing , aired in 2020 starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland, Matilda De Angelis, Lily Rabe, Edgar Ramirez, Noah Jupe and Noma Dumezweni and directed by Susanne Bier.
Grand Central Publishing published Korelitz's sixth novel, The Devil and Webster, in March 2017. Formerly a VISTA volunteer in Goddard, NH, Naomi Roth is now a feminist scholar and the first female president of Webster College in Central Massachusetts. Webster College, which shares some characteristics with Wesleyan University and others with Dartmouth College, is a liberal arts college known for left-leaning and activist undergraduates. In a plot that mirrors the student unrest of recent years, the Webster community erupts in student protests over the denial of tenure to an African-American professor of anthropology. Roth, whose daughter Hannah is a Webster sophomore, discovers that her own activist past has not prepared her to handle the protest, which quickly spirals out of control. On NPR's Fresh Air , Maureen Corrigan described it as "a smart, semi-satire about the reign of identity politics on college campuses today." [14]
Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan, published Korelitz's seventh novel, The Plot , in spring 2021. The novel concerns a failed writer, Jacob Finch Bonner, who appropriates the plot of his late student's unwritten novel. The resulting book becomes a publishing phenomenon, but its author begins to receive messages from someone who claims to know what he did. [15] In late 2021, it was announced actor Mahershala Ali was signed on to star in a limited series adaptation of The Plot. [16]
Korelitz's eighth novel, The Latecomer, was published by Celadon Books on May 31, 2022. Described as a slow-building literary novel, The Latecomer revolves around the wealthy New York-based Oppenheimer family, where the Oppenheimer triplets' lives are upended by the arrival of a fourth, unexpected sibling. In February 2022, it was reported that the novel would be adapting into a television series from Bruna Papandrea's Made Up Stories and Kristen Campo. [17]
Korelitz's ninth novel, The Sequel, was published by Celadon Books on October 1, 2024. It is the sequel to The Plot. [18]
In 2015 Korelitz and her sister, Nina Korelitz Matza, created Dot Dot Productions LLC to produce The Dead, 1904. The Dead, 1904 was produced for The Irish Repertory Theatre in The American Irish Historical Society from November 2016 through January 2017, starring Kate Burton as Gretta Conroy and Boyd Gaines as Gabriel Conroy [19] and received generally favorable reviews. A second production, from November 2017 through January 2018 starred Melissa Gilbert as Gretta Conroy and Rufus Collins as Gabriel Conroy. [20] [21] A third production from November 2018 through January 2019 featured most of the remaining cast, including Melissa Gilbert as Gretta Conroy and Rufus Collins as Gabriel Conroy, with the addition of American tenor Robert Mack as Bartell D'Arcy. Gallery Press published The Dead, 1904 in November, 2018. [22]
Korelitz's book Admission is the basis for the 2013 film of the same name. The film was adapted from the novel by Karen Croner and directed by Paul Weitz. It stars Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, as well as Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn, Nat Wolff, and Gloria Reuben. The first trailer was released on November 15, 2012, and the film was released in the US on March 22, 2013. [23] [24] [ needs update ] David E. Kelley's adaptation of You Should Have Known, renamed The Undoing , was filmed for HBO with director Susanne Bier and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland and Noah Jupe. Originally scheduled for May 2020 it was rescheduled for October 2020.
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet.
The Dead is a 1987 drama film directed by John Huston, written by his son Tony Huston, and starring his daughter Anjelica Huston. It is an adaptation of the short story of the same name by James Joyce, which was first published in 1914 as the last story in Dubliners. An international co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany, the film was Huston's last as director, and it was released several months after his death.
"The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. It is by far the longest story in the collection and, at 15,952 words, is almost long enough to be described as a novella. The story deals with themes of love and loss, as well as raising questions about the nature of the Irish identity.
Helene Hanff was an American writer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best known as the author of the book 84, Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a stage play, television play, and film of the same name.
Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, as she leaves an orphanage and is sent to college by a benefactor whom she has never seen. The novel was initially serialized in the April–September 1912 issues of the Ladies' Home Journal, and first published in book form by The Century Company in October 1912.
Jean Webster was the pen name of Alice Jane Chandler Webster, an American author whose books include Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.
The American Irish Historical Society (AIHS) is a historical society devoted to Irish American history that was founded in Boston in the late 19th century. Non-partisan and non-sectarian since its inception in 1897, it maintains the most complete private collection of Irish and Irish-American literature and history in the United States, and it publishes a journal entitled The Recorder. The society also holds various cultural events at its headquarters at 991 Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre company founded in 1988.
84 Charing Cross Road is a 1987 British-American drama film directed by David Jones, and starring Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Mercedes Ruehl, and Jean De Baer. It is produced by Bancroft's husband, Mel Brooks. The screenplay by Hugh Whitemore is based on a play by James Roose-Evans, which itself is an adaptation of the 1970 epistolary memoir of the same name by Helene Hanff — a compilation of letters between Hanff and Frank Doel dating from 1949 to 1968. Several characters who are not in the play were added for the film, including Hanff's Manhattan friends and Doel's wife Nora.
Les Misérables is a 1958 film adaptation of the 1862 Victor Hugo novel. Written by René Barjavel, the film was directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois and stars Jean Gabin as Jean Valjean.
And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, who described it as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released in January 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song. Successive American reprints and adaptations use that title, though American Pocket Books paperbacks used the title Ten Little Indians between 1964 and 1986. UK editions continued to use the original title until 1985.
Halley Feiffer is an American actress, playwright and television writer, known for her award-winning plays I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, and for showrunning and writing the entire season of American Horror Story: Delicate starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.
Admission is a 2013 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Paul Weitz and starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. The film was released in the United States and Canada on March 22, 2013. It is an adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz's 2009 novel of the same name.
Go Set a Watchman is a novel by Harper Lee that was published in 2015 by HarperCollins (US) and Heinemann (UK). Written before her only other published novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Go Set a Watchman was initially promoted as a sequel by its publishers. It is now accepted that it was a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, with many passages in that book being used again.
The Days of Abandonment is a 2002 Italian novel by Elena Ferrante first published in English in 2005, translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions. The novel tells the story of an Italian woman living in Turin whose husband abruptly leaves her after fifteen years together.
The Undoing is an American mystery psychological thriller television miniseries based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It was written and produced by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier. The miniseries stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant and premiered on HBO on October 25, 2020.
The Corner that Held Them is a novel by English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner, first published in 1948. It details the life of and lives inside a convent, from its establishment in the 12th century through to 1382. The plot involves the Black Death and multiple narratives that do not combine into a plot. The novel was originally published by Chatto & Windus with the American edition being published by Viking Press. It is Warner's favorite novel that she wrote. The novel explores whether a community run by women is able to exist under patriarchy through portrayals of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Warner typed 58 pages for an unfinished sequel that was spread between four gatherings. The novel was reviewed favourably by Rachel Mann and Hermione Hoby.
The Plot: A Novel is a work of fiction written by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The book was published in May, 2021 by Celadon Books. The story is a mystery-thriller.
Xochitl Gonzalez is an American writer. In 2022, she published her debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming which became a New York Times Best Seller on January 30, 2022.
