Joseph McElroy explained

Joseph Prince McElroy^[1] (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.^[2] He is noted for his long postmodern novels such as Women and Men.

Personal background

McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors.^[3] He graduated from Williams College in 1951. The following year, McElroy earned a master's degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952 to 1954, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961.^[4]

In 1961, McElroy married Joan Leftwich, of London, in London. She is the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews; her father, Joseph Leftwich, was a translator and anthologizer of Yiddish poetry.^[5] The McElroys' only child, Hanna, was born in 1967. McElroy assisted with the birth.

Career

McElroy taught English and Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire from 1956 to 1962 and at Queens College, City University of New York from 1964 to 1995, when he retired. McElroy's first novel, A Smuggler's Bible, was published in 1966. McElroy said A Smuggler's Bible "is like everybody's first novel, trying to put too much between covers. ...[I]t's a young book, and young people still seem to like it."^[6]

McElroy's writing is often grouped with that of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, due to the encyclopedic quality of his novels, especially Women and Men (1987). His short fiction was first published in literary journals. Echoes of McElroy's work can be found in that of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. McElroy's work often reflects a preoccupation with how science functions in American society;^[7] Exponential, a collection of essays published in Italy in 2003, collects science and technology journalism written primarily in the 1970s and 1980s for the New York Review of Books.^[8]

In 1980, McElroy and his class at Queens College interviewed Norman Mailer.^{[9] [10]} He interviewed Harry Mathews in 2002 for the Village Voice.^[11] McElroy wrote about his fiction and influences in his essay "Neural Neighborhoods".^[12]

Honors and awards

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Fiction, 1976^[13]
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, 1977^[14]
• Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship
• Ingram Merrill Foundation Fellowship, twice
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, twice

Published works

Novels

• A Smuggler's Bible, Harcourt Brace, 368 pages, 1966.
• Hind's Kidnap: A Pastoral on Familiar Airs, Harper and Row, 534 pages, 1969.
• Ancient History: A Paraphase, Knopf, 307 pages, 1971.
• Lookout Cartridge, Knopf, 531 pages, 1974.
• Plus, Knopf, 215 pages, 1977.
• Women and Men, Knopf, 1192 pages, 1987.
• The Letter Left to Me, Knopf, 151 pages, 1988.
• Actress in the House, Overlook, 432 pages, 2003.
• Cannonball, Dzanc Books, 312 pages, 2013.

Short stories

• The Accident, New American Review, Number 2, January 1968.
• Ship Rock: A Place, William B. Ewert, Concord, New Hampshire, limited edition, 42 pages, 1980
  • republished as a chapter in Women and Men, 1987
• Preparations for Search 1984
  • revised and printed as a chapbook, by Small Anchor Press, 2010
• Night Soul and Other Stories, Dalkey Archive Press, 304 pages, 2011.
• Taken From Him, Kindle Singles, 2014.
• 2015 . Court of Last Opinion . Fiction, No. 61 . Fiction, Inc. . May 1, 2022.

Essays

• Exponential (2003; published in Italy)
• "Neural Neighborhoods and Other Concrete Abstracts" (1974)

Further reading

• Colby, Vineta (ed). World Authors, 1975–1980
• LeClair, Tom. "An Interview with Joseph McElroy", Anything Can Happen, Tom LeClair and Larry McCaffery (eds.), 1983.
• Morrow, Bradford. "An Interview", Conjunctions 10 (1987).

Book chapters on McElroy

• .
• .
• .
• .
• , detailed character analysis.

Anthologies of McElroy criticism

• Table of Contents . The Review of Contemporary Fiction . 1990 . X . 1 .
• Web site: 2004 . Festschrift. Electronic Book Review .
• Festschrift . Golden Handcuffs Review . 2011 . 1 . 14 . dead . https://archive.today/20130125052513/http://www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com/gh14.html . January 25, 2013 .

External links

• • The Literary Encyclopedia
• A Joseph McElroy Festschrift (electronic book review)
• Joseph McElroy resources on the Web
• "The Courage of Joseph McElroy" (essay)
• Radio interviews with Michael Silverblatt for Bookworm
• Conversation with author Joshua Cohen for a Triple Canopy podcast
• "Neural Neighborhoods"

Notes and References

1. Full name as used on his doctoral thesis The Poetry of Henry King, Columbia University, 1961.
2. Web site: Andrew Essex . The Complications – Page 1 – Books – New York . Village Voice . June 3, 2003 . October 7, 2012.
3. Web site: Poly Prep Country Day School ~ Five Alumni Receive Distinguished Achievement Awards . Polyprep.org . April 15, 2007 . September 18, 2012.
4. World Authors 1975–1980
5. one of his translations was used by McElroy in A Smuggler's Bible from an anthology Leftwich dedicated to Joan
6. Web site: Postmodernism and Sumo Wrestlers: An Interview with Joseph McElroy . vice.com . July 7, 2013 . 2022-11-05.
7. Tom LeClair interview
8. Web site: Joseph McElroy: Official Author Website. Exponential. January 15, 2013.
9. "A Little on Novel-Writing", Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose 6 (1981)
10. Mailer, Norman, Pontifications (1982).
11. http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-10-22/news/should-writing-hurt/ Should Writing Hurt?
12. "Neural Neighborhoods and Other Concrete Abstracts", TriQuarterly 34 (Fall 1975), pp201-2.
13. Web site: All Fellows – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . Gf.org . September 18, 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120907143616/http://www.gf.org/fellows/all?index=m&page=12 . September 7, 2012 .
14. Web site: American Academy of Arts and Letters – Award Winners . Artsandletters.org . September 18, 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081013232000/http://www.artsandletters.org/awards2_popup.php?abbrev=Academy . October 13, 2008 .