Andrew Sean Greer (born November 21, 1970)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Andrew Sean Greer (born 1970) is an American novelist and short story writer.

He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.

Andrew Sean Greer, the child of two scientists, was born in Washington, D.C.. He studied writing with Robert Coover and Edmund White at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, where his unrehearsed remarks, critiquing Brown's admissions policies, caused a semi-riot. After years in New York working as a chauffeur, theater tech, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Montana, from where he soon moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives. He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center. He is an identical twin.

While in San Francisco, he began to publish in magazines before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me. His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009.

His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001.

His second book, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, came out in 2004. Writing in The New Yorker, John Updike called the book “enchanting, in the perfumed, dandified style of disenchantment brought to grandeur by Proust and Nabokov.” Mitch Albom then chose The Confessions of Max Tivoli for the Today Show Book Club and it soon became a bestseller. The story of a man aging backwards, it was inspired by the Bob Dylan song "My Back Pages." Though similar in theme, it is related neither to the Fitzgerald short story nor the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Greer's third novel, The Story of a Marriage, received a mixed reception. John Updike revised his earlier assessment of Greer in The New Yorker: "Greer is a prose writer who works on the edge of the overcooked, and there is nothing wrong with that—better that than raw—but can we believe in these highly seasoned sentences as passing through Pearl’s mind?" The Independent noted of the novel, "The author's signposting is not only heavy-handed but typical." The New York Times said of "The Story of a Marriage": "Mr. Greer seamlessly choreographs an intricate narrative that speaks authentically to the longings and desires of his characters. All the while he never strays from the convincing and steady voice of Pearlie. The Washington Post chose it as a book of the year, and called it "thoughtful, complex and exquisitely written."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sean_Greer

Further Readings:

The Story of a Marriage: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer
Paperback: 195 pages
Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (March 31, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312428286
ISBN-13: 978-0312428280
Amazon: The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
Amazon Kindle: The Story of a Marriage: A Novel

"We think we know the ones we love." So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect, and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship--how we can ever truly know another person.

It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health, but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep, and everything changes. Lyrical, and surprising, The Story of a Marriage is, in the words of Khaled Housseini, "a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect."

Holland Cook is a young black man hiding out in a Kentucky farmhouse in an attempt to avoid military service in World War II. Pearl is Holland’s home-school tutor and platonic friend. Complications immediately ensue — the war, an injury, then marriage to Pearl. Soon, a stranger enters the picture: girdle magnate Buzz Drumer, an old war buddy of Holland’s, who turns out to be more than a friend. Drumer makes a proposition to Pearl: He will trade his considerable fortune in exchange for the love of his life, who happens to be Holland.

More Spotlights at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Lists/Gay Novels