Adam Haslett (born December 24, 1970) is an American fiction writer and journalist.[1][2][3] His debut short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, and his second novel, Imagine Me Gone, were both finalists for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.[2][4] He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy in Berlin. In 2017, he won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.[4]
Adam Haslett | |
|---|---|
 Haslett at the 2016 Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | December 24, 1970 Rye, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | Swarthmore College (BA) University of Iowa (MFA) Yale University (JD) |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Notable works | Imagine Me Gone (2016) |
| Notable awards | PEN/Malamud Award (2006) Lambda Literary Award (2011) Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (2016) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Early life
editHaslett was born in Rye, New York and raised in Massachusetts and Oxfordshire, England. After graduating from Wellesley High School, he went on to receive a B.A. in English from Swarthmore College, an M.F.A. in creative writing from Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a J.D. from Yale University.
Career
editHaslett began his career as a writer with a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He published his first short story, “Notes To My Biographer”, in Zoetrope Magazine. This is the first story in his debut collection, You Are Not A Stranger Here, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and was a New York Times Bestseller. The book was noted chiefly for its depictions of mental illness[5] and “masterly sense of character.”[6]
In 2010, Haslett published his first novel, Union Atlantic, which centers on a conflict over a piece of land between a young banker and a retired school teacher who is offended by the banker's new mansion. The novel was finished the week that the 2008 financial crisis began, and is the portrait of the culture of impunity than led to the great recession.[7] It was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and received the Lambda Literary Award.
His second novel, Imagine Me Gone, was published in 2016. It depicts a family coping with the intergenerational consequences of the father and eldest son's struggles with depression and anxiety.[8] It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2019, Literary Hub named it one of the twenty best novels of the decade.[9]
In his journalism, Haslett has written about American politics,[10] the financial crisis,[11] and a range of cultural topics including gay marriage[12] in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Nation, among others.
He has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Columbia University.
Bibliography
editBooks
edit- You Are Not a Stranger Here, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2002
- Union Atlantic, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010
- Imagine Me Gone, Little, Brown, 2016[13]
- Mothers and Sons, Little, Brown, 2024
Short stories
edit| Title | Publication | Collected in |
|---|---|---|
| "Burial" | Small Craft Warnings (Spring 1990) | - |
| "Reunion" | The Alembic (Spring 1997) | You Are Not a Stranger Here |
| "Notes to My Biographer" | Zoetrope: All-Story (Fall 1999) | |
| "The Beginnings of Grief" | The James White Review 16.1 (Winter 1999) | |
| "War's End" aka "You Are Not a Stranger Here" |
Bomb 72 (Summer 2000) | |
| "Devotion" | The Yale Review 90.3 (July 2002) | |
| "The Good Doctor" | You Are Not a Stranger Here (2002) | |
| "Divination" | ||
| "My Father's Business" | ||
| "The Volunteer" | ||
| "City Visit" | The Atlantic (August 2005) | - |
| "Night Walk" | New York (November 30, 2009) | - |
| "The Act" | The Baffler 23 (2013) | - |
| "The Party of the Century" | Esquire (January 2015) | - |
Awards
edit- 2002 – New York Magazine Writer-of-the-Year Award winner
- 2002 – National Book Award for Fiction finalist for You Are Not a Stranger Here
- 2003 – PEN/L.L. Winship Award winner for You Are Not a Stranger Here
- 2003 – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist for You Are Not a Stranger Here
- 2006 – PEN/Malamud Award winner for accomplishment in the short story form
- 2010 – The Commonwealth Prize finalist for Union Atlantic
- 2011 – Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction winner for Union Atlantic
- 2016 – Kirkus Prize finalist for Imagine Me Gone
- 2016 – National Book Award for Fiction longlist for Imagine Me Gone
- 2017 – Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction winner for Imagine Me Gone
- 2017 – National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Imagine Me Gone
- 2017 – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist for Imagine Me Gone
References
edit- ^ Wiegand, David (21 September 2002), "Profile: Adam Haslett", San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 19 March 2010
- ^ a b Ellis, Sherry (March–April 2004), "Interview with Adam Haslett", Barcelona Review, retrieved 19 March 2010
- ^ "Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fiction Fellow, Class of Fall 2011". American Academy in Berlin. Archived from the original on 2012-12-29. Retrieved March 11, 2012.
- ^ a b Haslett, Adam (2017-06-27). Imagine Me Gone. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316261364.
- ^ Seligman, Craig (2002-07-21). "I Can't Go On, I'll Go Nuts". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (2002-06-28). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Behind Mental Illness, the Universal Sorrows of Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ "'Union Atlantic' Author Banked On A Coming Crisis". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ McAlpin, Heller (4 May 2016). "Unquiet Minds Make Absorbing Reading In 'Imagine Me Gone'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ "The 20 Best Novels of the Decade". Literary Hub. 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ Haslett, Adam (2016-10-04). "Donald Trump, Shamer in Chief". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ Haslett, Adam (2012-09-28). "Imaginary foe in the presidential election". The Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2020-10-01. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
- ^ Haslett, Adam (2004-05-24). "Love Supreme". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
- ^ Briefly reviewed in the July 25, 2016 issue of The New Yorker, p.65.