Gordon Lish
Encyclopedia
Gordon Jay Lish is an American
writer
. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver
, Barry Hannah
, Amy Hempel
, and Richard Ford
.
, but left without graduating in 1952. Later, in 1959, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English with honors from the University of Arizona
, where he met his first wife, Loretta Frances Fokes. They married in November 1956 and together had 3 children.
Following Lish's graduation, the family moved to San Francisco; here Lish had a year of graduate study at San Francisco State University
in 1960. In Early 1961, Candido Santogrossi and Lish founded a new Pacific Coast avant-garde literary journal, The Chrysalis Review.
He is a father of four (Jennifer, Rebecca, Ethan, and Atticus), and a grandfather of six (Anne, and Carla, children of Jennifer; Pearl and Ezra, children of Rebecca; and Nina and Isaac, children of Ethan).
, where they founded the avant-garde literary magazine Genesis West, which ran between 1961 and 1965. Genesis West was published in seven volumes by The Chrysalis West Foundation. While working on Genesis West, their house and magazine became a focus point, and celebrated and introduced such authors and poets as Neal Cassady
, Ken Kesey
, Jack Kerouac
, Allen Ginsberg
, Jack Gilbert
, and Herbert Gold
.
The Lish family often hosted the likes of Ken Kesey
and Neal Cassady
in their Burlingame
home. The Merry Pranksters
' wildly painted school bus, 'Further,' driven by Neal Cassady
, was often parked in front of their home. Neal Cassady
makes note of his time spent at the Lish home on page 151 of his only self-authored book, The First Third. Carolyn Cassady
makes note of the Lish home on page 387 of Off The Road
.
In 1963, Lish became director of linguistic studies at Behavioral Research Laboratories in Menlo Park, California
. There, in 1964, he produced English Grammar, a text for educators; Why Work, a book of interviews; New Sounds in American Fiction, a set of recorded dramatic readings of short stories; and A Man's Work, an information motivation sound system in vocational guidance. It consisted of over 50 translucent albums.
While in Menlo Park, one of Lish's friends was Raymond Carver
, who was editing educational materials in an office across the street from Lish's office. Lish edited a number of stories which wound up as Carver's first national magazine publications.
, where Lish served as the fiction editor at Esquire
from 1969 to 1976; here he became known as "Captain Fiction" for the number of authors whose careers he assisted. Lish published numerous Bart Midwood and Raymond Carver
stories in Esquire, and championed the work of Richard Ford
; he also promoted the work of such writers as Cynthia Ozick
, Don DeLillo
, Reynolds Price
, T. Coraghessan Boyle
, Raymond Kennedy
and Barry Hannah
.
While at Esquire, Lish edited the collections The Secret Life of Our Times and All Our Secrets Are the Same, which contained pieces by a number of prominent authors, from Vladimir Nabokov
to Milan Kundera
.
In February 1977, Esquire published "For Rupert - with no promises" as an unsigned work of fiction: this was the first time it had published a work without identifying the author. Readers speculated that it was the work of J. D. Salinger
, but it was in fact a clever parody by Lish, who is quoted as saying, "I tried to borrow Salinger's voice and the psychological circumstances of his life, as I imagine them to be now. And I tried to use those things to elaborate on certain circumstances and events in his fiction to deepen them and add complexity." The Wall Street Journal
February 25, 1977
; he remained here until 1995 and continued to champion new fiction, publishing works by Cynthia Ozick
, David Leavitt
, Amy Hempel
, Noy Holland
, Lynne Tillman
, William Ferguson
, Barry Hannah
, Harold Brodkey
, Raymond Carver
and Joy Williams
. After Lish retired from both teaching and publishing, some of his students continued to make noted contributions to American letters, the National Book Award was won in 2004 by Lily Tuck
for her novel The News From Paraguay. In the same year Christine Schutt
's Florida was a finalist, and Dana Spiotta was a finalist for the award in 2006 for Eat The Document. Other former students whose writing has met with praise include Diane Williams, Dawn Raffel
, William Tester
, Victoria Redel, Gary Lutz
, Ben Marcus
, Sam Lipsyte
, Will Eno
, and Bahamian writer Garth Buckner, whose The Origins of Solitude met with some critical acclaim.
Lish also continued teaching creative writing, inspiring writers including Amy Hempel
(who dedicated her collection Reasons to Live to him).
During his time at Knopf, Lish published several volumes of his own fiction:
In 1987, Lish founded and edited the avant garde literary magazine, The Quarterly, which showcases the works of contemporary authors. Six volumes were published by the summer of 1988. The Quarterly introduced such authors as J. E. Pitts, Jason Schwartz, Jane Smiley
, Mark Richard
, Bruce Holland Rogers
, and Jennifer Allen
. By the time the Quarterly ended in 1995, it had published 31 volumes.
Lish continued to write fiction, including Mourner at the door in 1988, Extravaganza in 1989, My Romance in 1991, and Zimzum in 1993. For the June 1991 issue of Vanity Fair
, James Wolcott
wrote a profile on Gordon Lish and Don DeLillo
called "The Sunshine Boys."
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
in 1984; that same year, his wife Barbara died.
published an article by D.T. Max about claims that the late Raymond Carver
's early short stories were more or less ghost-written by Lish, his editor. Other writers associated with Carver, such as Tobias Wolff and Tess Gallagher (Carver's wife at the time of his death) have steadfastly denied such claims, although Carver wrote Lish: “If I have any standing or reputation or credibility in the world, I owe it to you.” In December 2007 The New Yorker
magazine published an earlier and much longer draft of Carver's story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" under Carver's title, "Beginners." The magazine published Lish's extensive edits of the story on its web site for comparison. In May 2010 Giles Harvey wrote an article in the New York Review of Books reviewing Carver's work, and made the observation "The publication of 'Beginners' has not done Carver any favors. Rather, it has inadvertently pointed up the editorial genius of Gordon Lish." Conversely, in the New York Times Stephen King described Lish's influence as 'baleful' and heartless, singling out the story 'The Bath' as 'a total re-write' and 'a cheat'.
Lish has placed all his papers and manuscripts at the Lilly Library of Indiana University
. He was named one of the 200 major writers of our time by the French periodical Le Nouvel Observateur
.
His most recent book is a collection of his stories from past books, most of which he has apparently revised: Collected Fictions (2010, OR Books
).
. His high school teaching career ended when school administrators declined to give him tenure. Donovan Bess, writing in The Nation Magazine, wrote that "essentially, Lish is accused: of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag too speedily (time: 8.7 seconds); of “teaching on Cloud Seven” (two clouds too high); of flouting the system by, for example; making the kids give the answers’ of being “a screwball”; of wearing a hat indoors; of founding a “beatnik” literary magazine, called Genesis West; of using the word “shit” in a short story; of being unpredictable and moody-looking; of sponsoring avant-garde student poetry (at Mills, poetry that does not rhyme is avant-garde)”. Several students and adults testified on his behalf at the hearing. The full story is detailed in “The Man Who Taught Too Well" By Donovan Bess, The Nation Magazine, June 15, 1963, pages 507-516.
In addition to his career in literary publishing, Lish has conducted writing seminars in New York City
and served as a lecturer at Yale University
, New York University
and Columbia University
.
Don DeLillo
acknowledged Lish's influence as a teacher and friend in dedicating his book Mao II
to Lish. Lish dedicated his books My Romance, Mourner at the Door and Epigraph to Don DeLillo
. Lish also wrote an afterword to the publication of Don DeLillo
's first play, The Engineer of Moonlight, in which he attacks those who would call DeLillo's vision bleak. "Where we are and where we are going is where DeLillo is. He is our least nostalgic writer of large importance."
He is an honorary doctor of letters from State University of New York
awarded in 1994. He retired from teaching fiction writing in 1997 but came out of retirement to teach during the summers of 2009 and 2010 at the Center for Fiction in Manhattan.
David Leavitt
's novel Martin Bauman; or, A Sure Thing documents the narrator's experiences under the tutelage of Gordon Lish. In the novel, Lish is the basis for the character of Stanley Flint, an enigmatic writing teacher. T. Gertler
's novel, Elbowing the Seducer, has a character who is a book editor and womanizer who is apparently based on Lish. In Barry Hannah
's short novel, Ray, there is a character called Captain Gordon who is based on Lish, and Lish appears as himself in Hannah's Boomerang.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
, Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
, Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
, and Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...
.
Early life and family
Gordon attended Phillips AcademyPhillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
, but left without graduating in 1952. Later, in 1959, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English with honors from the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, where he met his first wife, Loretta Frances Fokes. They married in November 1956 and together had 3 children.
Following Lish's graduation, the family moved to San Francisco; here Lish had a year of graduate study at San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
in 1960. In Early 1961, Candido Santogrossi and Lish founded a new Pacific Coast avant-garde literary journal, The Chrysalis Review.
He is a father of four (Jennifer, Rebecca, Ethan, and Atticus), and a grandfather of six (Anne, and Carla, children of Jennifer; Pearl and Ezra, children of Rebecca; and Nina and Isaac, children of Ethan).
As founder and editor of Genesis West
In 1960, the Lish family moved to Burlingame, CaliforniaBurlingame, California
Burlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame. It is renowned for its many surviving examples of Victorian architecture, its affluence, and...
, where they founded the avant-garde literary magazine Genesis West, which ran between 1961 and 1965. Genesis West was published in seven volumes by The Chrysalis West Foundation. While working on Genesis West, their house and magazine became a focus point, and celebrated and introduced such authors and poets as Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. He served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road....
, Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert
-Life and career:Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of East Liberty, he attended Peabody High School then worked as a door-to-door salesman, an exterminator, and a steelworker...
, and Herbert Gold
Herbert Gold
-Early life:Gold was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Lakewood, a community he was later to memorialize in his first book, Birth of a Hero, published in 1951 by Viking Press. He moved to New York City at age 17 after several of his poems had been accepted by New York literary magazines...
.
The Lish family often hosted the likes of Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
and Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. He served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road....
in their Burlingame
Burlingame
Burlingame may refer to:People*Anson Burlingame, 19th century American diplomat; a US-China treaty was named after him, along with towns in California and Kansas...
home. The Merry Pranksters
Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were a group of people who formed around American author Ken Kesey in 1964 and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon...
' wildly painted school bus, 'Further,' driven by Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. He served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road....
, was often parked in front of their home. Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. He served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road....
makes note of his time spent at the Lish home on page 151 of his only self-authored book, The First Third. Carolyn Cassady
Carolyn Cassady
Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady is an American writer associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other prominent Beat figures...
makes note of the Lish home on page 387 of Off The Road
Off the Road
Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg is an autobiographical book by Carolyn Cassady. Originally published in 1990 as Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, it was republished by London's Black Spring Press, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of...
.
In 1963, Lish became director of linguistic studies at Behavioral Research Laboratories in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
. There, in 1964, he produced English Grammar, a text for educators; Why Work, a book of interviews; New Sounds in American Fiction, a set of recorded dramatic readings of short stories; and A Man's Work, an information motivation sound system in vocational guidance. It consisted of over 50 translucent albums.
While in Menlo Park, one of Lish's friends was Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
, who was editing educational materials in an office across the street from Lish's office. Lish edited a number of stories which wound up as Carver's first national magazine publications.
Editor at Esquire magazine
Lish and his second wife moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where Lish served as the fiction editor at Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
from 1969 to 1976; here he became known as "Captain Fiction" for the number of authors whose careers he assisted. Lish published numerous Bart Midwood and Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
stories in Esquire, and championed the work of Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...
; he also promoted the work of such writers as Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. She is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson.-Background:Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children...
, Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
, Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...
, T. Coraghessan Boyle
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Tom Coraghessan Boyle is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the mid 1970s, he has published twelve novels and more than 100 short stories...
, Raymond Kennedy
Raymond Kennedy
Raymond Kennedy was an American novelist. He was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts to James Patrick Kennedy and Orise Belanger and was the youngest of three brothers. Kennedy spent his formative years in Belchertown and Holyoke...
and Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
.
While at Esquire, Lish edited the collections The Secret Life of Our Times and All Our Secrets Are the Same, which contained pieces by a number of prominent authors, from Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
to Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
.
In February 1977, Esquire published "For Rupert - with no promises" as an unsigned work of fiction: this was the first time it had published a work without identifying the author. Readers speculated that it was the work of J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
, but it was in fact a clever parody by Lish, who is quoted as saying, "I tried to borrow Salinger's voice and the psychological circumstances of his life, as I imagine them to be now. And I tried to use those things to elaborate on certain circumstances and events in his fiction to deepen them and add complexity." The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
February 25, 1977
Editor at Alfred A. Knopf
Lish left Esquire in 1977 to become a senior editor with the publishing firm of Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
; he remained here until 1995 and continued to champion new fiction, publishing works by Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. She is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson.-Background:Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children...
, David Leavitt
David Leavitt
David Leavitt is an American novelist.-Biography:Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University. and a professor at the University of Florida...
, Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
, Noy Holland
Noy Holland
Noy Holland is an American writer and National Book Award nominee. She is married to the writer Sam Michel.-Literature-related:...
, Lynne Tillman
Lynne Tillman
Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, and two other nonfiction...
, William Ferguson
William Ferguson
William Ferguson may refer to:* Bill Ferguson, cricket scorer* Bill Ferguson , Maryland state senator* Will Ferguson, Canadian writer* William A...
, Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
, Harold Brodkey
Harold Brodkey
Harold Brodkey, born Aaron Roy Weintraub was an American writer, and novelist.-Life:Brodkey was raised in University City, Missouri outside St. Louis...
, Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
and Joy Williams
Joy Williams
Joy Williams is an American singer-songwriter and a member of the folk duo The Civil Wars.-Studio albums:* Joy Williams, 2001 [Reunion]* By Surprise, 2002 [Reunion]* Genesis, 2005 [Reunion]...
. After Lish retired from both teaching and publishing, some of his students continued to make noted contributions to American letters, the National Book Award was won in 2004 by Lily Tuck
Lily Tuck
Lily Tuck is an American novelist and short story writer whose novel The News from Paraguay won the 2004 National Book Award. Her novel Siam was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction...
for her novel The News From Paraguay. In the same year Christine Schutt
Christine Schutt
Christine Schutt is an American novelist. Schutt received her BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her MFA from Columbia University...
's Florida was a finalist, and Dana Spiotta was a finalist for the award in 2006 for Eat The Document. Other former students whose writing has met with praise include Diane Williams, Dawn Raffel
Dawn Raffel
Dawn Raffel is an American short story writer and novelist. Her work hasappeared in The Quarterly, NOON, edited by Diane Williams, O, The Oprah Magazine, Conjunctions, OpenCity, Fence, Guernica, The Antioch Review, The Mississippi Review, The...
, William Tester
William Tester
William Tester is an American short story writer and novelist. He was raised on a cattle ranch in Florida and is a graduate of Columbia University and Syracuse University . He published the novel Darling in 1991 and the story collection Head in 2000...
, Victoria Redel, Gary Lutz
Gary Lutz
Gary Lutz is an American writer of both poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in NOON, The Quarterly, Conjunctions, Unsaid, Fence, StoryQuarterly, The Believer, Cimarron Review, 3rd Bed, Slate Magazine, New York Tyrant, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, The Apocalypse Reader ,...
, Ben Marcus
Ben Marcus
Ben Marcus is the author of three books of fiction, Notable American Women, The Father Costume, and The Age of Wire and String. His new novel, The Flame Alphabet, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in January of 2012...
, Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte is an American novelist and short story writer.The son of the sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, Sam Lipsyte was born in New York City and raised in Closter, New Jersey...
, Will Eno
Will Eno
Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York.His plays include Tragedy: a tragedy, The Flu Season, King: a problem play, Thom Pain , Middletown, Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions and an adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt titled Gnit...
, and Bahamian writer Garth Buckner, whose The Origins of Solitude met with some critical acclaim.
Lish also continued teaching creative writing, inspiring writers including Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
(who dedicated her collection Reasons to Live to him).
During his time at Knopf, Lish published several volumes of his own fiction:
- Dear Mr. CapoteDear Mr. CapoteDear Mr. Capote is a 1983 novel by Gordon Lish. His first novel, it takes the form of a letter to Truman Capote from a serial killer, "Yours Truly", who wishes Capote to write his biography and share the proceeds.-References:...
, his first novel. - What I Know so far, a collection of short stories, was published in 1984 and included "For Rupert—with no Promises.", and the O. Henry AwardO. Henry AwardThe O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
-winning "For Jeromé—with Love and Kisses," a parody of J. D. SalingerJ. D. SalingerJerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
's story, "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor." - Peru, was published in 1986.
In 1987, Lish founded and edited the avant garde literary magazine, The Quarterly, which showcases the works of contemporary authors. Six volumes were published by the summer of 1988. The Quarterly introduced such authors as J. E. Pitts, Jason Schwartz, Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
, Mark Richard
Mark Richard
Mark Richard is an American short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and poet. He is the author of two award-winning short story collections, The Ice at the Bottom of the World and Charity, and a bestselling novel, Fishboy....
, Bruce Holland Rogers
Bruce Holland Rogers
Bruce Holland Rogers is an American author of short fiction who also writes under the pseudonym Hanovi Braddock. His stories have won a Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, two World Fantasy Awards, the Micro Award, and have been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award and...
, and Jennifer Allen
Jennifer Allen
Jennifer Allen is an American author, commentator, and daughter of football coach George Allen.-Family:Jennifer Allen grew up the only daughter of a professional football coach who was known for total commitment to his team and sport....
. By the time the Quarterly ended in 1995, it had published 31 volumes.
Lish continued to write fiction, including Mourner at the door in 1988, Extravaganza in 1989, My Romance in 1991, and Zimzum in 1993. For the June 1991 issue of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, James Wolcott
James Wolcott
James Wolcott is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He also writes a blog....
wrote a profile on Gordon Lish and Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
called "The Sunshine Boys."
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in 1984; that same year, his wife Barbara died.
Since 1998
On August 9, 1998, The New York Times MagazineThe New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
published an article by D.T. Max about claims that the late Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
's early short stories were more or less ghost-written by Lish, his editor. Other writers associated with Carver, such as Tobias Wolff and Tess Gallagher (Carver's wife at the time of his death) have steadfastly denied such claims, although Carver wrote Lish: “If I have any standing or reputation or credibility in the world, I owe it to you.” In December 2007 The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine published an earlier and much longer draft of Carver's story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" under Carver's title, "Beginners." The magazine published Lish's extensive edits of the story on its web site for comparison. In May 2010 Giles Harvey wrote an article in the New York Review of Books reviewing Carver's work, and made the observation "The publication of 'Beginners' has not done Carver any favors. Rather, it has inadvertently pointed up the editorial genius of Gordon Lish." Conversely, in the New York Times Stephen King described Lish's influence as 'baleful' and heartless, singling out the story 'The Bath' as 'a total re-write' and 'a cheat'.
Lish has placed all his papers and manuscripts at the Lilly Library of Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
. He was named one of the 200 major writers of our time by the French periodical Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. Based in Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation ....
.
His most recent book is a collection of his stories from past books, most of which he has apparently revised: Collected Fictions (2010, OR Books
OR Books
OR Books is a New York-based independent publishing house founded by two veterans of the publishing industry, John Oakes and Colin Robinson, in 2009. The company, a "digital upstart", claims to offer a revolutionary approach to publishing by printing on demand, selling directly to the customer,...
).
Teaching and Influence
For three years in the early 1960s, Lish taught as an English teacher at Mills High School, Millbrae, CaliforniaMillbrae, California
Millbrae is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, just west of San Francisco Bay, with San Bruno on the north and Burlingame on the south. The population was 21,532 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. His high school teaching career ended when school administrators declined to give him tenure. Donovan Bess, writing in The Nation Magazine, wrote that "essentially, Lish is accused: of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag too speedily (time: 8.7 seconds); of “teaching on Cloud Seven” (two clouds too high); of flouting the system by, for example; making the kids give the answers’ of being “a screwball”; of wearing a hat indoors; of founding a “beatnik” literary magazine, called Genesis West; of using the word “shit” in a short story; of being unpredictable and moody-looking; of sponsoring avant-garde student poetry (at Mills, poetry that does not rhyme is avant-garde)”. Several students and adults testified on his behalf at the hearing. The full story is detailed in “The Man Who Taught Too Well" By Donovan Bess, The Nation Magazine, June 15, 1963, pages 507-516.
In addition to his career in literary publishing, Lish has conducted writing seminars in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and served as a lecturer at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
acknowledged Lish's influence as a teacher and friend in dedicating his book Mao II
Mao II
Mao II, published in 1991, is Don DeLillo's tenth novel. It was the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1992. The title is derived from a series of Andy Warhol silkscreen prints depicting Mao Zedong. This book was dedicated to DeLillo's editor, Gordon Lish.-Plot summary:A reclusive novelist...
to Lish. Lish dedicated his books My Romance, Mourner at the Door and Epigraph to Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
. Lish also wrote an afterword to the publication of Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
's first play, The Engineer of Moonlight, in which he attacks those who would call DeLillo's vision bleak. "Where we are and where we are going is where DeLillo is. He is our least nostalgic writer of large importance."
He is an honorary doctor of letters from State University of New York
State University of New York
The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
awarded in 1994. He retired from teaching fiction writing in 1997 but came out of retirement to teach during the summers of 2009 and 2010 at the Center for Fiction in Manhattan.
David Leavitt
David Leavitt
David Leavitt is an American novelist.-Biography:Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University. and a professor at the University of Florida...
's novel Martin Bauman; or, A Sure Thing documents the narrator's experiences under the tutelage of Gordon Lish. In the novel, Lish is the basis for the character of Stanley Flint, an enigmatic writing teacher. T. Gertler
T. Gertler
T. Gertler is an American novelist and freelance writer. She is the author of several short stories and the screenplay for Convention Girls, a film produced in 1978. She has composed one novel titled Elbowing the Seducer which was published in 1984...
's novel, Elbowing the Seducer, has a character who is a book editor and womanizer who is apparently based on Lish. In Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
's short novel, Ray, there is a character called Captain Gordon who is based on Lish, and Lish appears as himself in Hannah's Boomerang.
Select English bibliography
- A Man's Work, New York : McGraw-Hill, (19671967 in literatureThe year 1967 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions published.*Cecil Day-Lewis is selected as the new Poet Laureate of the UK.-New books:...
), OCLC 5855822 - All Our Secrets are The Same, New York : Norton, (19761976 in literatureThe year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-New books:*Kingsley Amis – The Alteration...
), ISBN 0393087484 LCCN 76040486 OCLC 2425115 - Arcade, or, How to write a novel, New York : Four Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight Windows was an independent book publisher in New York City. Its debut occurred in the fall of 1987, under the direction of two young editors, John G. H. Oakes and Daniel Simon. In 1995, Oakes and Simon parted ways...
, (19981998 in literatureThe year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 5 - Tennessee Williams' 1938 play, Not About Nightingales, receives its stage première....
), ISBN 1-56858-115-7 LCCN 98026693 - Collected Fictions, New York : OR BooksOR BooksOR Books is a New York-based independent publishing house founded by two veterans of the publishing industry, John Oakes and Colin Robinson, in 2009. The company, a "digital upstart", claims to offer a revolutionary approach to publishing by printing on demand, selling directly to the customer,...
, (20102010 in literatureThe year 2010 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February - The Wheeler Centre, Australia's "literary hub", officially opened.*April 3 - First release of the Apple iPad, electronic book reading device....
) - Dear Mr. CapoteDear Mr. CapoteDear Mr. Capote is a 1983 novel by Gordon Lish. His first novel, it takes the form of a letter to Truman Capote from a serial killer, "Yours Truly", who wishes Capote to write his biography and share the proceeds.-References:...
, New York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston, (19831983 in literatureThe year 1983 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Ironweed by William Kennedy is published.*Salvage for the Saint by Peter Bloxsom and John Kruse is published. This is the final book in a series of novels, novellas and short stories featuring the Leslie Charteris...
), ISBN 0-030-61477-5 LCCN 85026276 - English Grammar, Palo Alto, Ca.: Behavioral Research Laboratories, (19641964 in literatureThe year 1964 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jean-Paul Sartre becomes head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners....
) OCLC 11328343 - Epigraph, New York : Four Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight Windows was an independent book publisher in New York City. Its debut occurred in the fall of 1987, under the direction of two young editors, John G. H. Oakes and Daniel Simon. In 1995, Oakes and Simon parted ways...
, (19961996 in literatureThe year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
), ISBN 1-56858-076-2 LCCN 96019753 - Extravaganza, New York : Putnam, (19891989 in literatureThe year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
), ISBN 0-399-13417-4 LCCN 88028146 OCLC 18463582 - Krupp’s Lulu, New York : Four Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight Windows was an independent book publisher in New York City. Its debut occurred in the fall of 1987, under the direction of two young editors, John G. H. Oakes and Daniel Simon. In 1995, Oakes and Simon parted ways...
, (20002000 in literatureThe year 2000 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 13 - Final original Peanuts comic strip is published...
), ISBN 1-56858-154-8 LCCN 99086329 OCLC 43324258 - Mourner at the door, New York : Penguin Books, (19881988 in literatureThe year 1988 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Margaret Atwood - Cat's Eye*J.G. Ballard - Memories of the Space Age*Iain M...
), ISBN 0-140-10680-4 LCCN 88031663 - My Romance, New York : Norton, (19911991 in literatureThe year 1991 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Coupland publishes the novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularizing the term Generation X as the name of the generation....
), ISBN 0-393-03001-6 LCCN 90024142 OCLC 22766592 - New Sounds in American Fiction, Menlo Park : Cummings Pub. Co. (19691969 in literatureThe year 1969 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The first Booker Prize is awarded.* "Penelope Ashe", author of the bestselling novel Naked Came the Stranger, is found to be several people who each took a turn writing a chapter of what they described as "junk" in...
), LCCN 68058434 OCLC 4102981 - Peru, New York : E.P. Dutton, (19861986 in literatureThe year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Michael Grade. Controller of BBC One, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.-New books:*Kingsley Amis - The Old Devils...
), ISBN 0-525-24375-5 LCCN 85013015 OCLC 12216053 - Self-imitation of Myself, New York : Four Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight WindowsFour Walls Eight Windows was an independent book publisher in New York City. Its debut occurred in the fall of 1987, under the direction of two young editors, John G. H. Oakes and Daniel Simon. In 1995, Oakes and Simon parted ways...
, (19971997 in literatureThe year 1997 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. , giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a...
), ISBN 1-56858-098-3 LCCN 97013200 OCLC 36713172 - The Secret Life of Our Times, Garden City : Doubleday, (19731973 in literatureThe year 1973 in literature involved several significant events and the writing of many notable books.-Events:*September 25 - The funeral of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda becomes a focus for protests against the new government of Augusto Pinochet...
), ISBN 0-385-06215-X LCCN 73080734 OCLC 754648 - The Selected Stories of Gordon Lish, Toronto : Somerville House Pub., (19961996 in literatureThe year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
), ISBN 1-895897-74-2 OCLC 35927592 - What I know so far, New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, (19841984 in literatureThe year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is widely read....
), ISBN 0-03-070609-2 LCCN 83012980 OCLC 9830715 - Why Work, Palo Alto, Ca.: Behavioral Research Laboratories, (19661966 in literatureThe year 1966 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 14 - Dissident writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to hard labour for "anti-Soviet activity"....
), OCLC 62726395 - Zimzum, New York : Pantheon, (19931993 in literatureThe year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
), ISBN 0-679-42685-X LCCN 93003360 OCLC 27769736
Quotes
- "The secret of good writing is telling the truth." -- Dick Cavett television interview, Aug. 25, 1991
- "It’s not what happens to people on the page; it’s about what happens to a reader in his heart and mind."
- "I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire."
- "Never be sincere — sincerity is the death of writing"
Awards
- A Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
- The O. Henry Prize
- The Antioch ReviewAntioch ReviewThe Antioch Review is an American literary magazine established in 1941 at Antioch College in Ohio. One of the oldest continuously published literary magazines in the United States, it publishes fiction, essays and poetry from both emerging and established authors.The magazine continues to publish...
2005 Awards for Distinguished Prose
External links
- http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/collected-fictions/ Collected Fictions, OR Books, 2010
- The Man Who Taught Too Well, Nation Magazine Bess, Donovan, June 15, 1963 issue http://www.thenation.com/archive/detail/13148034
- Raymond CarverRaymond CarverRaymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
's story "Beginners " and Gordon Lish's edits of the story to create its published version, entitled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." - http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/berge.html Carol Berg, Papers
- http://www.salon.com/media/1998/09/01media.html Lashed by Lish, 1998
- http://www.andover.edu/publications/2001winter_bulletin/author/author3.htm Author, Author: One the Threshold, 2001
- http://donswaim.com/nytimes.carverchronicles.html The Carver Chronicles
- http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_05.19.94/NEWS/nec0519.htm Lust for Lish, 1994
- http://www.andover.edu/publications/2001winter_bulletin/author/author3.htm Gordon Lish in Phillips Academy alumni letter
- http://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=925 Gordon Lish at Ploughshares
- Radio interview with Michael Silverblatt and Gordon Lish in Bookworm on December 12, 1993
- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17910720 Rights Battle Brews over Un-Edited Carver Stories, All Things Considered, January 7, 2008
- http://www.youtube.com/user/ORBooksChannel#p/u/0/Es7I63U_7eE "The Bullfighter"-- a five-minute video featuring Lish discussing his new book Collected Fictions
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/King-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1289736082-g/xBNvYcL2OMrBA7w/7tNw Stephen King's review of Carver's biography and story collection Beginners.