Blake Bailey

Blake Bailey (born July 1, 1963) is an American writer. Bailey is widely known for his literary biographies of John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson. He is the editor of the Library of America omnibus editions of Cheever's stories and novels.

Blake Bailey
Born (1963-07-01) July 1, 1963
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States[1]
Occupationbiographer
NationalityUnited States
SpouseMary Brinkmeyer

Background

Bailey grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and attended high school at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School, where he was friends with another future author, Dan Fagin.[2] He went to college at Tulane University, from which he graduated in 1985.

He is married to Mary Brinkmeyer, a psychologist at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.[3] Together they have a daughter. Bailey is a tennis enthusiast.[4]

Bailey and his family lost their house and most of their possessions in Hurricane Katrina, an experience he wrote about in a series of articles for Slate.[5]

From 2010-2016 he was the Mina Hohenberg Darden Professor of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.[6] He was succeeded by Black Elk author Joe Jackson.[7]

Career

After college, Bailey wrote occasional freelance pieces and taught gifted eighth-graders at a magnet school in New Orleans. After publishing a long critical profile of Richard Yates, Bailey contracted to write a full-length biography of the novelist, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (2003).

In 2005, Bailey was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on his biography, Cheever: A Life, which won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award among other honors. Bailey also edited a two-volume edition of Cheever's work for the Library of America.

Bailey published his biography of the novelist Charles Jackson, Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (2013), as well as a memoir, The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait (2014).

In an interview with The New York Times published on November 17, 2012, Philip Roth said that Bailey was his official biographer and at work on that project.[8] While Roth was alive, he gave Bailey exclusive access to papers, friends and family, and made himself available for extensive interviews.[9][10] Bailey's 880-page biography of Roth will be published by W. W. Norton & Company in April 2021.[11]

Awards and honors

Bibliography

Insofar as my books have an aim,

it’s to reconcile the paradox
of a highly compartmentalized

personality. Blake Bailey, 2010 [1]

  • A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (Picador, 2003)
  • Cheever: A Life (Knopf, 2009)
  • Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (Knopf, 2013)
  • The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait (Norton, 2014)
  • Philip Roth: The Biography (Norton, 2021)

As editor:

  • John Cheever: Collected Stories & Other Writings (Library of America, 2009)
  • John Cheever: Complete Novels (Library of America, 2009)
  • The Sunnier Side and Other Stories, by Charles Jackson (Vintage/Random House, 2013)
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References
  1. "Up Front - Blake Bailey". The New York Times. August 6, 2010.
  2. Ken, Raymond (April 20, 2014). "Oklahoma City native Dan Fagin wins Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction". The Oklahoman. Retrieved 2014-04-20.
  3. Janine Latus (November 2011). "Precisely, A world-class literary biographer". Distinction.
  4. Dwight Garner (July 27, 2007). "Stray Questions for: Blake Bailey". The New York Times.
  5. Blake Bailey (Sep 2, 2005). "My Year of Hurricanes". Slate Magazine.
  6. https://www.odu.edu/news/2016/3/blake_bailey#.Wo9ZD4JG2MI
  7. "Author Blake Bailey to Depart Hohenberg Darden Chair in Creative Writing". Old Dominion University. Retrieved 2019-07-13.
  8. Charles McGrath (November 17, 2012). "Goodbye, Frustration: Pen Put Aside, Roth Talks". The New York Times.
  9. Bonanos, Christopher. "Philip Roth's Biographer Has a Hair-raising Claire Bloom Story". Vulture. Retrieved 2018-07-02.
  10. "Blake Bailey Online – Bio". blakebaileyonline.com. Retrieved 2018-07-02.
  11. Italie, Hillel. "Blake Bailey's 880-page Philip Roth bio to arrive in April". Associated Press. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  12. "National Book Critics Circle Announces Finalists for Publishing Year 2014". National Book Critics Circle. January 19, 2015. Archived from the original on January 22, 2015. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
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