George Michael Cuomo (1929 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

– October 26, 2015) was an American author of eight novels, as well as short stories, poetry, and a nonfiction book.

Life

He attended Stuyvesant High School and earned a B.A. from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

in 1952 in addition to an M.A. from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

in 1955. Furthermore, Cuomo has taught at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary insti ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, and the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

. His work appeared in ''Antioch Review'', ''Minnesota Review'', ''The Nation'', ''Saturday Review,'' ''Tamarack Review''. Cuomo's first novel, ''Jack be Nimble'', was published in 1963. The novel's eponymous narrator evokes (no doubt intentionally) the anti-hero of ''All the King's Men'', transplanted to the topsy-turvy world of collegiate football. His subsequent novels, which include ''Among Thieves'', ''Family Honor'', and ''Trial By Water'', engage troubling issues of race, class, and social justice. Cuomo's deeply fallible heroes tend to be people that genteel society would prefer to forget: a small-time criminal caught up in a brutal prison riot, a racial minority ensnared in a domestic terrorist plot. His name has been mentioned more than once in lists of unfairly neglected authors, for example by Richard Yates in ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bos ...

''. His papers are held at

Awards

* 1983 Guggenheim Fellowship

Works

* ''Trial By Water'', Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated, * ''Jack be nimble: a novel'', Doubleday, 1963 * ''Bright day, dark runner: a novel'', Doubleday, 1964 * ''Among Thieves'', Doubleday, 1968 * ''Sing, choirs of angels'', Doubleday, 1969 * ''The hero's great great great great great grandson: a novel'', Atheneum, 1971 * ''Geronimo and the Girl Next Door'', BkMk Press, 1973, * ''Family honor: an American life'', Doubleday, 1983,

Anthologies

References

External links

* * * "The Fiction of George Cuomo", ''The Arizona quarterly'', Volume 30, 1974 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cuomo, George Michael 1929 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American novelists Stuyvesant High School alumni Tufts University alumni Indiana University Bloomington alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty University of Arizona faculty University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty American male novelists 20th-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) Novelists from Massachusetts Novelists from Arizona