Noah Gordon (November 11, 1926November 22, 2021) was an American novelist.
Early life and career
Gordon was born in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
, on November 11, 1926, the son of a
pawnbroker.
He served in the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
at the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
He reported for the ''
Worcester Telegram
The ''Telegram & Gazette'' (and ''Sunday Telegram'') is the only daily newspaper of Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the c ...
'' until he was hired by the ''
Boston Herald'' in 1959.
Works and reception
Some of the topics covered within his novels include
medical history
The medical history, case history, or anamnesis (from Greek: ἀνά, ''aná'', "open", and μνήσις, ''mnesis'', "memory") of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either to the patient or to other peo ...
and
medical ethics. Later he began to focus more on themes relating to the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
and
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
cultural history.
Gordon's debut novel,
''The Rabbi'', spent 26 weeks on
The New York Times Best Seller list
''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...
in 1965.
When publishing ''
The Physician'', the book was picked up by
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
- Germany, which promoted the book in Europe, where Gordon became very popular in Spain and Italy.
His novel ''
The Last Jew'' won "Que Leer Prize" (Spain) and "Boccaccio Literary Prize" (Italy).
Though Gordon's reception internationally has been quite strong, as of 2015, the ''Boston Globe'' described Gordon as relatively unknown in the United States.
''New York Times'' writer Carey Goldberg described a similar tension between Gordon's widespread popularity in Germany and relative lack of awareness in the United States in 1996.
The reasons for the European success of his novel ''The Physician'' were discussed in the ''
Forward''.
His novel ''Shaman'' won the first
James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction in 1993.
Personal life
Gordon had three children with his wife, Lorraine (''
née'' Seay).
He died on November 22, 2021, in
Dedham, Massachusetts, at the age of 95.
Writer Noah Gordon, author of ‘The Doctor’, dies at 95
/ref>
Novels
* '' The Rabbi'' (1965)
* ''The Death Committee'' (1969)
* ''The Jerusalem Diamond'' (1979)
* '' The Last Jew'' (2000)
* ''Sam and Other Animal Stories'' (2002) (children's stories)
* '' The Winemaker'' (2007)
Cole family trilogy
* '' The Physician'' (1986) ( film adaption in 2013)
* ''Shaman'' (1992)
* ''Matters of Choice'' (1995)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Noah
1926 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
Jewish American writers
James Fenimore Cooper Prize winners
Journalists from Massachusetts
Military personnel from Massachusetts
Writers from Worcester, Massachusetts
United States Army personnel of World War II