Louis Bayard (born November 30, 1963)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Louis Bayard (born on November 30, 1963 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is an American author. His historical mysteries include The Pale Blue Eye, Mr. Timothy, The Black Tower and The School of Night, and have been translated into 11 languages.

Bayard was born on November 30, 1963 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He graduated from Princeton University and received a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He lives in Washington, DC, and teaches fiction writing at George Washington University.

Bayard’s first two novels, Fool’s Errand (Alyson) and Endangered Species (Alyson), were romantic comedies with modern settings.

His third novel, Mr. Timothy, published by HarperCollins, was a Victorian thriller featuring a grown-up Tiny Tim from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Bayard's novel was a New York Times Notable book and was chosen one of the 10 best books of the year by People magazine.

His next novel, The Pale Blue Eye, is a murder mystery set at West Point in 1830, where the young Edgar Allan Poe was a cadet. The book was nominated for an Edgar and a Dagger and was optioned for a film adaptation by writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart).

Bayard’s fifth novel, The Black Tower (Morrow), set in Paris in 1818, follows the real-life detective Eugène François Vidocq as he investigates the mystery surrounding Marie Antoinette’s son.

Bayard’s most recent novel, The School of Night (Holt), shuttles between modern-day Washington DC and Elizabethan England, where a group of scholars including Walter Ralegh, Christopher Marlowe and the scientist Thomas Harriot explore dangerous questions.

Roosevelt's Beast will be published on March 18th, 2014.

Bayard has also written book reviews and essays for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Salon and Nerve. He has appeared at the National Book Festival.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bayard

Further Readings:

Fool's Errand by Louis Bayard
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Alyson Books; 1st edition (June 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1555834949
ISBN-13: 978-1555834944
Amazon: Fool's Errand

Bayard's accomplished debut novel, a witty romantic comedy, is set in Washington, D.C.'s gay community, a group, says one character, that is smaller than Mayberry. Despite very few degrees of separation, 32-year-old Patrick Beaton is having trouble locating his ideal man, a figure of perfection he met (or dreamed he met) briefly at a Sunday brunch. Patrick is aided in his search for the man he calls "Scottie" by Seth, a persistent, perspiring sidekick who has his own reasons for wanting Patrick to get over this obsession. Numerous subplots, including side romances, rat infestations and a visit from Patrick's non-Irish but brogue-spouting father, revolve around and involve Patrick's quest for Scottie, but Bayard, like Armistead Maupin in his Tales of the City series, is a master of tightly woven, oddly believable coincidence-driven plotting. Like Maupin, and Stephen McCauley, Bayard's snappy dialogue manages to be more funny than people really are, and utterly convincing at the same time. He excels at gently skewering aspects of urban gay culture: a young man in a tank top with "his car keys [dangling] from his nipple ring"; a group of dancers in a western theme bar, "cantering in a circle like high-bred fillies." Readers are never sure what twists or turns are coming, but Bayard makes Patrick's poignant, fumbling attempts to achieve domestic bliss a journey gay (and gay-friendly) readers will be eager to embark upon, and travel along to the satisfying end. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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