Robert Ferro (October 21, 1941 – July 11, 1988) was an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

whose semi-autobiographical fiction explored the uneasy integration of

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

and traditional American upper middle class values.

Biography

He was born in

Cranford, New Jersey Cranford is a township in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,847, an increase of 1,222 (+5.4%) from the 2010 census count ...

and graduated from

Cranford High School Cranford High School is a four-year state school, public Secondary education in the United States, high school serving students in ninth grade, ninth through twelfth grades, located in Cranford, New Jersey, Cranford, in Union County, New Jersey, ...

. He went to college at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

and received a

Master's Degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

. In late 1965 Ferro met

Andrew Holleran Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber (born 1944), an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Flori ...

at the

Iowa Writer's Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

. He later lectured at

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher ed ...

. He was a member of

The Violet Quill The Violet Quill (or the Violet Quill Club) was a group of seven gay male writers that met in 1980 and 1981 in New York City to read from their writings to each other and to critique them. This group and the writers epitomize the years between the ...

. He died of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

a few months after his partner,

Michael Grumley Michael Grumley (July 6, 1942 – April 28, 1988) was an American writer and artist. Grumley was born in Bettendorf, Iowa. He attended the University of Denver, the City College of New York and the Iowa Writers' Workshop Grumley received a B.S. De ...

, in 1988 at his father's home in

Ho-Ho-Kus Ho-Ho-Kus () is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 4,258, an increase of 180 (+4.4%) from the 2010 census count of 4,078, which in turn reflected an increase ...

, New Jersey, age 46. Grumley and Ferro are buried together under the Ferro-Grumley memorial in Rockland Cemetery,

Sparkill, New York Sparkill, formerly known as Tappan Sloat, is a suburban hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Orangetown, Rockland County, New York, United States located north of Palisades; east of Tappan; south of Piermont and west of the Hudso ...

. Following their deaths, the Ferro-Grumley Foundation, which manages their estate, created and endowed the annual

Ferro-Grumley Award The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grum ...

for LGBT fiction in conjunction with

Publishing Triangle The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards prog ...

Themes

Robert Ferro's works are especially interested in the phenomena of homosexual integration into the traditional family. Love of family is a theme that appears in both ''The Family of Max Desir'', and ''Second Son'' and reflects his traditional Italo-American sentiments. In 1984, Ferro told the "Cranford Chronicle" that the town in his novel ''The Family of Max Desir'' was a fictionalized version of his hometown,

. The novel's "Indian River" is meant to be the Rahway River and acts as "the heart of the town and the center of

he main character's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

imagination." "Indian Park," host to a revived Victorian water carnival in "Desir," is a fictionalized version of the real-life Nomahegan Park on the Rahway River.1984 Chronicle interview; Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States volumes/ref>

Books

* * * *

References

External links

Robert Ferro Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 1941 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American novelists American writers of Italian descent American gay writers Cranford High School alumni Rutgers University alumni University of Iowa alumni AIDS-related deaths in New Jersey American LGBT novelists LGBT people from New Jersey American male novelists People from Cranford, New Jersey 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American LGBT people {{US-novelist-1940s-stub

Biography

Themes

Books

References

Further reading

Archival sources

External links