Leonard Michaels (January 2, 1933 – May 10, 2003) was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays.
Early life and education
Michaels was born in New York City to Jewish parents; his father was born in Poland. He attended
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
and was awarded a
BA degree, and then went on to earn an
MA and PhD in English literature from the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. After receiving his doctorate, Leonard Michaels moved to
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, where he was to spend most of his adult life and become Professor of English at 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 Francisco, ...
.
Michaels would later explain literary theory to magazine readers across America.
Literary career
In 1969, Michael's first book was published – ''Going Places'', a collection of short stories.
His follow-up book, another collection of short stories, was ''I Would Have Saved Them If I Could'', published in 1975. It was considered by some as strong as Michaels'
debut
Debut or début (the first public appearance of a person or thing) may refer to:
* Debut (society), the formal introduction of young upper-class women to society
* Debut novel, an author's first published novel
Film and television
* ''The Debu ...
.
Michaels' first novel, released in 1981, was ''The Men's Club''. It is story-like comedy that simultaneously attacks and celebrates the absurdities of men as they gather in a kind of urban support group. In 1986, the novel was made into a
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
, directed by
Peter Medak, with the screenplay by Michaels, and starring
Roy Scheider,
Harvey Keitel,
Stockard Channing
Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' ( ...
,
Jennifer Jason Leigh and
Frank Langella
Frank A. Langella Jr. (; born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. He has won four Tony Awards: two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's '' Frost/Nixon'' and as André in Flori ...
.
Michaels' second and last novel was published in 1992. Titled ''Sylvia'', it is a fictionalized memoir of his first wife, Sylvia Bloch, who committed suicide. Sylvia is described in the book as "abnormally bright" but prone to violent rages, "like a madwoman imitating a college student." ''Sylvia'' incorporates passages from Michaels' diary, a selection of which was published under the title ''Time Out of Mind'' in 1999.
Michaels became a regular contributor to ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine in the 1990s.
Sylvia Bloch
Sylvia Bloch was born 1939 in Switzerland. Her father, Alfred Bloch, born in Gailingen, Germany on 8 August 1904, was a chemist who worked for
Fuller Brush
The Fuller Brush Company sells branded and private label products for personal care as well as commercial and household cleaning. It was founded in 1906 by Alfred Fuller. Consolidated Foods, now Sara Lee Corporation, acquired Fuller Brush in 19 ...
. Her mother was Else Sondhelm, born in Dresden, Germany in 1916. The family immigrated to New York in 1939 and lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Other information
Michaels was a Professor of English at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
He took part in
anti-Vietnam war protests in the
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
area, although he also accepted a description of himself as an 'unpolitical man'.
He is interred at
Oakmont Memorial Park, in
Lafayette, California.
Michaels had a daughter with his third wife, the poet
Brenda Hillman.
His son
Jesse Michaels (from his second marriage) was the vocalist and primary lyricist in the seminal underground
punk rock band
Operation Ivy
Operation Ivy was the eighth series of American nuclear tests, coming after '' Tumbler-Snapper'' and before '' Upshot–Knothole''. The two explosions were staged in late 1952 at Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Proving Ground in the Marshall Is ...
.
Selected publications
;Short story collections:
* ''Going Places'' (
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
, )
* ''I Would Have Saved Them If I Could'' (
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
, )
* ''Shuffle'' (
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
, )
* ''A Girl With a Monkey: New and Selected Stories'' (
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
, )
* ''The Collected Stories '' (
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
, )
* ''The Nachman Stories '' (
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
, )
;Novels:
* ''The Men's Club'' (
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...
, ) (filmed in 1986)
* ''Sylvia'' (
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
, )
;Essays:
* ''To Feel These Things'' (
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
, )
* ''The Essays of Leonard Michaels ''
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
,
;Diary:
* ''Time Out of Mind'' (
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
, )
;Others:
* ''A Cat'' (
1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
, )
References
External links
*
The Improbable MoralistBoth an appreciation of his art and review of ''The Collected Stories'' by
Phillip Lopate
Phillip Lopate (born 1943) is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. He is the younger brother of radio host Leonard Lopate.
Early life
Phillip Lopate was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a BA degr ...
; published in
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
on-line June 21, 2007 (July 9, 2007 issue)
''Leonard Michaels – let us not forget him''review of ''The Collected Stories'', by Paul Wilner. This piece appeared July 1, 2007 a
SF Gate.com The review also extends into a backlog of reflection about Michaels' ''Sylvia'' and an essay on Michaels' called ''Difficult Friends'' in
Wendy Lesser's ''Room For Doubt''.
To Live in a Culture: Leonard Michaels' ''Sylvia'' and ''The Collected Stories''piece by Nora Griffin a
The Brooklyn RailInterview: Wyatt Mason on Leonard Michaelsa
Harper'sof the University of California
* – A reading of Michaels' story "Cryptology".
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michaels, Leonard
1933 births
2003 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
Jewish American novelists
Writers from Berkeley, California
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Burials in Contra Costa County, California
American male short story writers
University of Michigan alumni
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American male writers
Screenwriters from California
20th-century American screenwriters
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews